#copper tea kettle

[morimatea]

Be peace and serene at the moment.

[itsalwaysdark]

me and high lamp watching a video and they called something a copper kettle (it wasnt wven. it was a copper pan) but i like went into fight or flight trying to remember that choir warmup. but i remembered it

[daryl-dixon-daydreams]

reader pronouns: she/her Glenn was up early. Maggie was still sleeping and she needed it... so he'd headed downstairs and dug through the cabinets until he found an old box of chai tea. He'd put on the kettle, poured his own cup and a spare, and sat himself down at the kitchen island, and he waited.

And right on time, Daryl's boots shuffled up the stairs from the basement and he dragged himself into the kitchen to face another day.

"Hey," Glenn greeted him kindly. Daryl looked up, struck by someone else being awake at the early hour.

Daryl tried to answer, but nothing came out at first until he cleared his throat, and then he managed a gravelly, 'Hey" in return.

"You look terrible," Glenn said sympathetically.

"...Thanks," Daryl growled back. Then he noticed that there was a second cup of tea sitting on the kitchen island beside Glenn. Swirls of steam lazily rose and drifted in the air.

"Come on and sit down for a minute. I think we should talk," Glenn said. He gestured to the stool in front of the mug.

Daryl hesitated, but then went to join him.

"I think I know why you've been looking so rough lately," Glenn said.

Daryl stared back at him, his blue eyes narrowed in something remarkably like suspicion. "I just ain't slept—"

"—since she left," Glenn interrupted. "I know. And it's not exactly a coincidence. Is it?" he asked.

Daryl shifted nervously and dropped his gaze to the counter, to his boots, to the mug sitting untouched in front of him, to anything except Glenn.

"When Maggie and I got separated after—after the prison... it was agony. I mean, I really thought that if I couldn't find her... I'd just give up and die. That would be it, you know? Because nothingness seemed like the better option compared to living without her." Daryl's blue eyes furtively glanced up to meet Glenn's. "But I knew, I knew, that she was out there. And that kept me going and it was the only thing that could put my world right again. So I did everything I could in my power to make that happen."

Daryl gulped and chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, so hard that he tasted the tang of copper. "Why're ya tellin' me this?" he drawled, his voice gritty and tired.

"You know why. She's the one who sets your world right. And if that's true... then you have to go after her and bring her back. Whatever it takes. You have to find her and tell her. And I'm not telling you anything that you don't already know. I'm just trying—to... speed it along a little, I guess," he said with a dry laugh and a sympathetic look. "Whatever is stopping you—" Glenn shook his head, "fuck it. Do it. Set your world right, Daryl. You can't keep going like this. More than that, you shouldn't." Prompt: "I haven't slept since she left." A/N: I'm not crying. It's just raining on my face...

[hallowed-spirits]

*The smell of sogginess wafts through the air until Lucille finds Dals.*

“….Do you have any tea..?”

*Their voice is small, barely collected.*

@auguryofillomen 📖

It takes her a while to find Dals, eventually spotting it at the edge of the hallow a bit of a distance from the side the garden is on.

"Lucille! Hello, I was actually just about to make some more actually," it sounds like its smiling, its hard to tell. Its form is mostly pale wispy smoke at the moment. Beside it is a raised fire braiser with a familar copper coloured kettle, "I have mint, rosehip, nettle, raspberry and rosemary in my pouch, what would you prefer?"

Dals gestures for Lucille to sit, the fire and the sun making the surrounding area almost cosy. The grass around this unused area of the hallow is tall enough that when sitting they are mostly blocked from view, allowing for a sense of privacy without the feeling of enclosure.

[beaft]

my curse is that i am incapable of writing fantasy without establishing all the rules beforehand. like, i know it's okay to just "write a cool thing and then justify it later", but i cannot do that because i have ADHD also known as chronic overthinker's disease. i'll get 100 words in and a character will drink some tea, and then i'll have to stop and ask myself where tea comes from in this world and how it's distributed and whether colonialism exists and are they heating up the water with magic or are they using a copper kettle or perhaps a cauldron and is tea-drinking an elitist Rich Person Thing like it was in the early 1700s or has it settled into common practice? and then it's an hour later and i have still only written 100 words

[queenmuzz]

A Chain Unbroken Chapter I

A link in the chain.

Read it HERE on Ao3

It’s winter time, and Emmrich wants to go out, wants to skate the frozen river, he wants to go out to play with friends.  Twilight is fast approaching, but he doesn’t care. He’s eight years old, he doesn’t need his mother to go with him anymore, he’s a big boy,  the dark doesn’t scare him anymore.

But he’s also a dutiful son, the only child of the Volkarin household, so when his mother tells him that he can only go out after supper, and that supper takes place only after his father returns home, he bites his tongue and completes his chores.  Tend the fire, and set the table.  The latter he does eagerly, the sooner his father could sit down to eat, the sooner he could go out.  Hopefully his friends wouldn’t have wandered off in boredom, leaving him alone.  He hated being left alone.

The former chore, keeping the hearth alight, was much less fun.  It was the only thing that kept their creaky, drafty tenement house warm, but he had it drilled into him that he couldn’t just dump wood into it willy nilly, fuel was hard to come by, especially in the depths of winter.  He had come to realize at an early age that his family could not afford simple things that others could.  Yes, his belly was always full, and he would never lack for clothing, but he had noticed that his parents were thin, their clothing was patched and shabby.  But they were happy together, with their matching set of wedding rings, the way they both told him he was destined for great things, and he could never deny that they loved him more than anything in the world.

And that’s why he did his best to use the least amount of fuel to keep the fire burning.  He might not be able to bring in money, like his mother cooking, but he could help by saving a copper or two.

The door opened, bringing a gust of cold air as the tall lanky figure of Rupert Volkarin came in. 

“Father!”  He throws himself at the man who laughs, catches him and spins him around.  

“How’s my little Emmi doin’?” He sets him down with an exaggerated groan. “Not so little now either, eh?”

“My name is Emmrich!” He pouts even as he still clings to him like a toddler.  Unlike other nevarran children, he has no repulsion of the scent that permeates the man’s clothing.  Yes, had heard enough from the older kids at school, the insults about his father’s profession. He really didn’t care.  Sure, his father was a butcher, but that didn’t make him any worse than any father.  He was just doing what he had to survive.  He remembers seeing a Dalish Caravan passing through the countryside, and the way they revered the forest and trees, and yet they chopped down trees when need called for it.

“Well ‘Emmrich’,” his mother’s stern, yet loving voice comes from behind.  Your father is tired, and probably wants to clean up before supper.  Would you be a dear, and heat up some water in the kettle?  Enough for the wash basin and to steep the tea?”

He nods as he runs over to the fireplace and shoves another log into the hearth, stoking the flames.  His father walks over and embraces his mother, sweeping her in a tender kiss as they make their way up the narrow rickety stairs.  He smiles at how much they adore each other.  Some of his friends’ parents can’t seem to stand each other.  Not his. They were so deeply in love, despite their humble situation.  When he grows up, he’s going to find his special person.  No matter what it takes.

He lugs the water to fill the kettle.  It’s going to take a long time to heat it all up, and it’ll use up a lot of wood.

Emmrich thinks hard.  He wants to go out with friends before bedtime, and he doesn’t want to use the precious fuel that his father and mother work so hard to afford.  What if there was a way to…

His arm tingles, and he reaches towards the fire.  He’s had dreams like this, urges to unlock something within him.   That he could tap into the energies of his dreams, bring them to this world and create flames without using wood.  He closes his eyes and tries to replicate the action he’s done while he slumbered.

Three things happen:  An explosion of hot air, so powerful that it knocks him back across the room, into the wall.  

The creak of the ceiling beam, always noisy on windy days, begins to shriek and crack..

And most alarming of all, a figure, cloaked and masked has suddenly appeared out of nowhere.  The only distinguishing feature is piercing grey eyes that are locked on him. 

The beam above him screams as it wrenches from its support and begins to plummet.  He tries to shield himself with his arms, knowing that it will be in vain.  He closes his eyes, waiting for the inevitable pain.

It never comes.  Instead, he hears a grunt.  He cracks his eyes open to see that figure standing over him, straining to hold the beam.  

It’s hard to make out their features, aside from those grey, almost silver eyes.

“Emmrich…” their voice grunts out, clearly tiring from the effort.  “The fire…put it out… it’s gonna spread.”  Already flames are licking a fallen piece of plaster on the floor.  He scrambles and takes the kettle of water and dumps the contents on the flames, smothering them and coating the room in darkness.  Above the hiss of steam he hears the screams and protests of wood and masonry, the smash of pottery and glass.  The world is literally crashing down upon him, and there is nothing he can do about it…he’s gonna die here.

He hears an anguished roar, and then arms grab him out in the darkness. More things fall as he feels himself rolling across the tilted floor.  He’s reminded of the time when he got in a fight with one of the older kids at school, which led to them tumbling down a hill.  Except instead of exchanging punches, this stranger holds tightly, shielding him from the impact of falling wood, plaster and brick.  The sounds are terrifying to him, it’s like the world is about to end.  But the mysterious stranger holds him tightly, shielding him from the worst of it.  

After what seems like forever, the roar dies down to nothing, save for the pounding of his heart, and his laboured breathing.  Two sets of laboured breathing.

“You alright?”  There’s a voice on his right, and he turns to look, but sees nothing. 

‘Oh yeah, you can’t see in the dark like me…not yet at least.  One moment.”  He hears the rustle of cloth, and then a snap, similar to the sound of an ember popping.   A sudden blast of soft blue light illuminates the area.  It takes him a few seconds to look around.  They’ve managed to roll under the kitchen table, which is propped up against the wall like a tent.  It gives him just enough space to move his limbs to let the blood flow moving, but little else.  And there’s the other person, this mysterious cloaked figure, their eyes reflecting silver blue.

“You alright, Emmrich?”

Their voice is soft, and even through a whisper he can tell that she’s a woman, probably as old as his mother.  Maybe one of her friends?  But he’s never heard that voice before, even as he’s served tea when her neighbors come over to gossip. It’s hard and unyielding, but not unkind.  It reminds him of his Uncle Bernard, a traveling mercenary, a voice that has seen much action.

“Fine.” He admits.  Right now his heart is pounding  heavily, thrumming so much blood that it still sounds like his house is collapsing around him.  But she doesn’t need to know how utterly terrified he is.  He’s eight years old, he’s brave and strong.  He needs to distract himself.

“Who are you?”

She stills, then her eyes look to the side.  

“You can call me… Rook”

“How do you know my name?  I don’t remember meeting someone like you.”

She shifts uncomfortably, and those eyes dart away momentarily before returning to him.  “I heard your mother call your name, something about heating up tea water.”  

The thought of his mother suddenly makes him remember his parents.  They’re upstairs, most likely in the bedroom.  His mother is probably folding the fresh laundry, checking to see what clothes need mending, chiding his father for getting a particularly hard to clean stain out on his best shirt.  He’d probably laugh and give her a kiss, and they’d forget all about the stains.

Surely they would have felt the floor collapse, and come out running… unless, the roof followed the floor and they were cru-

No, he thinks, they are searching for him right now.  They wouldn’t let me stay here in the dark.  

“Father?”  He calls out into the dimly lit space.  Nothing.  “Mother?”  The only response is the distant trickle of masonry.  

What if they are hurt?  He needs to go to them. He needs to help them.  He’s not sure what he can do, but he needs to find them.  

“Emmrich…” Rook's voice is soft and sad, and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like what it implies.  He feels a surge of panic flow through him. 

“I NEED TO FIND THEM!  I NEED TO SEE THEM!”  He moves quickly, kicking at the table above them, using all his weight to try to push the table up, to heave it so he can dig his way up and out.   It was twilight when the collapse, there might still be light, the green veilfire lamps would just start being lit.  He would be able to navigate his way to find his parents.

“Emmrich, no… stop!” Rook tries to force him back down, but he’s full of adrenaline.   He won’t let this weirdo cloaked figure stop him from finding his parents.  That same prickling feeling that he felt before flows down his arm.  If he willed it, he could blast that table to smithereens, he knows it.

Suddenly, something shifts and the table comes down, carrying the weight of the house on it.  Faster than he would ever expect, Rook rolls over to shield him, not that it would save him, he knows.  They’ll both be killed by the collapse.  For a brief moment, a terror fills him.  

He doesn’t want to die.

A spark lights up, a green flash lights up the area, even overpowering the blue, and the collapse stops, mere inches from Rook's back, held up by a green bubble.  He gasps, both in surprise, and then in exertion as it takes all his dwindling reserves of energy to keep the bubble up.  He knows that it’s the only thing keeping him from getting crushed to death.

Rook, to her credit, wastes no time, and rolls off of him, finding anything, wood, brick, stone.  Anything that will prop up the table, as he gasps and sweats at the effort.

“I think… I think you can let go now…” her voice is ragged, and he’s not sure what she means, but it doesn’t matter, whatever energy he had is sapped, and the last thing he remembers is her silver eyes shifting from reflecting green to blue before everything goes dark.

He wakes up groggy, like a nap cut short.  Which is odd, he HATES naps.  Naps are for little kids.  But this… this feels comfy.  He’s surrounded by a warm fluffy blanket that smells odd.  He keeps his eyes closed, hoping that he’ll drift back to sleep.

Then he hears a voice, soft and gentle, speaking, her voice murmuring something as if it was a recitation.

“Let them be found worthy to pass through the veil,

Let them go into the Fade, hand in hand,

Free of trouble.

Free of pain

And let their memory endure in those that yet live”

It sounds solemn, and sad…  he’s heard it before, but he can’t remember where exactly where or when.  

He opens his eyes, expecting to see the wooden beams of his small bedroom ceiling, but instead, he sees, mere inches from his head, an unfamiliar wooden panel lit not by  the warm light of the rising sun, nor of the green veilfire of the lamp outside his window.  This is blue.  He’s confused, and then feels the blanket moves on its own, a sharp intake of breath.

The past rushes back towards him, and his heart races. 

“How long?” he croaks, his throat feels scratchy and dry, like cracked plaster.

“You’ve been asleep for probably a good six or so hours,” Rook’s voice explains as she pulls away from him.  Was she holding him as he slept?  He feels the chill seep into his bones almost immediately, and he longs for her to hold him again.  It’s oddly comforting, considering he doesn’t know her at all.

“My parents-” he tries to talk, but he can’t, his throat feels so dry, he coughs, and Rook rustles around something in her cloak, and pulls out a squarish thing.  

The sound of a lid being unscrewed, and her voice, equally raspy, orders him, “Take a sip.  But only a small sip.”

He obeys, and feels some liquid that drips down his throat.  It burns, causing him to cough, but there's a comforting hand on his shoulder, and her silver blue eyes regard him sympathetically.  “Sorry, it’s just Anderfel Brandy.  Not really the stuff a kid should be drinking, but it should be enough to wet your lips.”  She’s right, that after the scorching heat burns his throat, it feels better, like a freshly plowed field that has the first shoots of wheat popping out.

“My parents,” he repeats, and she freezes just as she’s about to take a sip, “They haven’t come for me yet?”  

She decides to forgo taking a swig, and screws the top before placing it in her cloak.  “Emmrich…” she takes a soft intake of breath, before she looks him in the eye.  “Your parents aren’t coming.”  

That makes no sense, his parents would never abandon him.  Surely his father is going through the ruins of their hours, screaming his name as he pulls the building apart brick by brick.  His mother would be pushing aside old furniture, working her fingers bloody to scrabble her way to him.  Unless… what Rook means is… no… she couldn’t mean that?

“You could find them!” he says hopefully, before clarifying, “You’re strong, I saw you hold up that beam!  You can dig your way out of here!  You can find them!  You can…”

Rook's eyes look sad, and shakes her head.  “I can’t…”  Her voice is a strangled whisper.  “Even if I was strong enough to move mountains, there’s no way I could bring them back…”

The way she says it, he can read between the lines.  And the chill that was settling in now freezes the marrow in his bones.  

“No…” he gives out a strangled denial, “they can’t be… can’t be…” the word goes unsaid, but it echoes in the air, bouncing off the bricks, the wood, the shattered pottery, the scattered knives his father uses as part of  his despised profession.  

Dead

He can’t breathe.   His heart is beating so fast it feels like it's going to burst.  His fingers are beginning to go numb, and he’s not sure if it's because of the cold.  His parents are gone, beyond the reach of anyone, and he’s stuck here, in this cramped area with some stranger he can’t even see the face of, with his parents above him, their bodies crushed to…

“I can’t-  I can’t-” he tries to tell Rook, but what air leaves his lungs is not replaced, and his whole body is now numb and cold.  Maybe he’s dead already.  Maybe he’s been squashed like a tomato by the house, and he doesn’t know it yet. 

Maybe Rook is the Guide that Nevarrans talk about, the one who guides souls across the Veil, into the Fade.  They’re supposed to be a cloaked masked figure that often travels on a black horse.  It’s supposed to be comforting, to know in your final moments, you’re not alone.  But to Emmrich, it's terrifying.  He doesn’t want his parents to die.  He doesn’t want to die.  Not here, in the dark and the cramped space.   

He doesn’t want to know that he did something that killed them all…

“Emmrich,” Rook's voice intrudes into his spiraling thoughts, and he feels warmth on his shoulder.  “May I hold you…?”  He nods numbly, and he feels warmth and feeling seep back into his body as she pulls him towards her, an embrace that is comforting and oddly familiar.  It’s not the tight strong hugs his father gives him, or the soft encompassing hugs his mother gives, but he swears he’s felt it before… or maybe he WILL feel it.  Which makes no sense.  How can he know a sensation he won’t experience until the future?  The weirdness of it all partially breaks the spiral of panic he’s been stuck in, and he’s able to take a gasping breath.

“Breathe with me,” she tells him, and he complies.  “One breath in… hold it in…3…2…1, let it out.   Breathe in again… hold… 3…2…1, let it out…”

They complete the cycle a dozen or so times, each one becoming easier.  He can feel her heartbeat reverberating on his chest, fast but steady, and his heartbeat begins to match hers.  He can’t help but clutch her cloak, and he feels something hard and cold in the fabric.

“Ah…she says,” and pulls away for a brief moment, after she thinks he’s calmer, and he hears a metallic ‘ clink’ .   She shows what he found. 

It’s a beautiful golden brooch.  The shape of a grinning skull, with gems in its eyes that match Rook’s eye colour exactly.   He’s entranced by it, the coolness of the metal that quickly warms at his touch, the sparkle that sends out out dazzling sparks of blue silver into the little cramped space, and for a brief moment, he thinks he’s laying out with his father on the roof of his home one summer night, looking up at the stars.

“You know,”  Rook says as he plays with it. “It’s brought me great comfort when I was in trouble, just holding it kept me calm.  Maybe…” she says with some effort, “maybe it’s time it helped you.”

His head snaps up.  Surely she can’t be serious.  He might not know much about how money works, but this brooch would probably cost more than his father earned in a year!  And she just wants to give it to him?

“No..I can’t…” he tries to shove it back to her, but she is insistent. 

“Keep it, Emmrich…Please”  Her voice is sad, and so desperate, that he feels compelled.  And as he nods at her, her eyes seem to sparkle like the gems in the skull.

Suddenly, there’s a pop, and the blue light goes out, the twinkling stars vanishing with it.  A great cold darkness sweeps in.

He hears her mutter something, possibly a swear word as she seems pats down a pouch at her waist.  “Spirits consume me!  I don’t have any more Lyrium tablets…”  

He can’t see anything now, and that panic that lay slumbering roars back to the surface.   He’s going to die here, forgotten and alone.  This place will be a tomb for him and his family.  There will be no one to remember him.   No one to perform the rites to send him and his parents into the Fade. His breathing becomes ragged and his heart begins picking up speed.  He feels cold and clammy.  His hands become numb, save for his left palm, which clutches the skull, and as he feels the texture, he swears it exudes a warmth from within.  He tries to focus on it, that as long as he can feel it, it means he’s still alive.   

Breath in… hold it in…3…2…1… let it out…

He’s not sure if she’s telling him to do that, or if he’s doing it on his own.  All he knows is that she holds him tightly, curling her body around him, enveloping him with her softness and warmth/

“You will live, Emmrich, I swear it…” she whispers in his ear, her oath as certain as if it was written in Nevarran granite.  “You will do great things.  You will face almost insurmountable hurdles, and you will clamber over them.  It will be hard, but you won’t be alone, even when you feel like you are.  And I…” she stops  herself.  He tries to look up at where she is, tries to make out those silver grey eyes, and for a brief moment, he swears he can see them.   

‘And I… ‘ what did she want to say?  Why couldn’t she say it?

“Would you like to hear a story?”

He’s far too old for stories, but right now, aside from her embrace and the little brooch, her voice is the only thing that keeps him from panicking.  He nods, and despite it being pitch black, she somehow can see him, because she starts talking.

“So, there was this group of people that joined to save the world…”

He dozes in and out while she tells the story.  It’s not that it’s a boring story, far from it.  But her voice is so entrancing, it lulls him to sleep.  He suspects that was her intention.  Every minute he sleeps, he’s conserving energy, he’s not panicking, he’s a minute closer to rescue.  But he remembers snatches.  There’s dragons, and a hero who hunts them.  (He’s Nevarran, he can’t help but be entranced by stories about dragons.)  The hero also can breathe fire.  (Okay, now the story is not true. Dragons might have been gone for a long time, but at least they existed).  There’s an Antivan Crow, who is possessed by a spirit of Determination that’s been tormented until it changed its nature.  (That’s just silly, only mages can be possessed, and almost all of them turn into monsters)  There’s a brave grey warden with his Griffon, a dwarf who can cast magic (now he’s getting insulted about this story.  Everyone knows Dwarves can’t use magic!)  An elf that can make old machines move on their very own, and a brave woman from Tevinter that uses her magic to help slaves escape their cruel masters.   He doesn’t really hear about what happens,  but he seems to think there’s a hole in the story, characters that don’t get mentioned but play a very important part.  He doesn’t mind.  He feels safe and warm in her arms.

She’s talking about a dragon that attacks Treviso, when she stops suddenly.

“Listen!”  She hisses, and his ears prick up at the sounds of thumps, and is that… voices?  Yes!  There’s voices, muffled, but they are distinct, at least three of them.

“HEY!  DOWN HERE!  HELP US!”  he yells, and resists the urge to kick at the table.  It would be very unfortunate for him to get crushed when help is so close.

For a moment, there is silence.   He panics, maybe he scared them off.  Maybe they’re looters that fled.  And then the thumps and voices increase volume and speed.  He can even make out a few phrases

“I’m tellin’ you Lukas, I swore I heard a voice!”

“You’re probably drunk again…there’s no way anybody would be alive for so long down here!”

“I’M HERE!” he screams at the top of his lungs, “I’M NOT DEAD!”  Another spell of silence!

“Caspar’s Bones!  That’s Rupert’s boy!  Keep diggin’ lads!  Lukas, get your old lady over here with some blankets, and some of her soup.  We’ve got a live one!”  The thumping continues, and he can make out the sounds of grunts as masonry is chucked.

And then the darkness is dispelled by a hole, the size of his fist lets in the early morning sunlight.  He scrabbles out of Rook’s arms, and presses his face against the hole, breathing fresh cold air.  

There’s a gasp from the two men pulling the rubble away, he recognizes them as a couple of his neighbors.

“Emmrich?  You alright lad?”

“YES, I WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE!”  He’s on the cusp of tears, but not panicking.  After everything, he just wants out.  

“Patience lad…” the older one of the two. “We dig any more, we’re liable to have this whole thing crashing down on you and I.  Give us a bit to get more people to help.  Don’t worry, we ain’t about to abandon you,” his face grows sombre, “I owe your parents that much, at least.” The man disappears and there’s silence for the moment.

Emmrich doesn’t quite get what he means, but he’s waited hours so far, he can wait a bit longer.

“Rook!” He turns around to see her, “You were right!  We’re gonna get out of here! We’re gonna li-”  There’s something off about her, she seems to be glowing… like sparkles from the gems in the skull are within her.

“You’re right.  You’re going to live.  You’re going to survive.  But…” she looks at her gloved hand, which he swears is see through, like a sheer curtain.  “You’re going to have to do it without me… Her eyes glitter, but not because they are gems, it looks like she’s about to cry.  “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me… but knowing that you’re alive makes it worth it…”  She pulls him in close, as if to give him a hug.

Impulse takes over, and he grabs her mask off, revealing her face. He needs to see what she looks like, even for just a moment.  Maybe he’ll recognize her!  She reacts by yanking back, her hood falling off from the sudden motion, and he gasps.  It’s not a face he’s ever seen before.  It’s pale and silver strands of hair frame it.  She looks… beautiful.  Like a princess from one of those fairytales where the chevalier fights a dragon.  Except, in her tale, she’s the princess braving the flames to slay the beast.  He takes in every feature, from the tiny scar above her left eyebrow, to the dimple in her cheek.  The way her hair shimmers like moonlight.  He’s going to remember every little bit of her, he’s going to treasure it.  And if she disappears, he’s going to find her. 

“Oh Emmrich…” she says and there’s something in her voice, a sense of love and longing that is different from what he’s experienced from his parents..  She pulls him in one more time to hold him, and then he feels the oddest feeling on his forehead.  It takes him to realize it's her lips giving him a gentle kiss.  “We’ll meet again, I promise.”

And then a gust of winter wind blows through the hole, and she’s gone.

He doesn’t really remember much afterwards.  Multiple hands grabbing rubble, yells to prop up stuff, the hole getting larger and larger, until it's big enough for him to scrabble through.  There’s cheers, blankets, and a cup of hot soup thrust into his hands.  It doesn’t taste half as good as his mother’s… speaking of which… he asks where his parents are, and no one says anything, won’t look him in the face.

That’s when he finds out he’s alone.  

Uncle Bernard never shows up for the funeral, never comes to claim his nephew, and when his magic shows up a few months later, he’s promptly shipped off to the Circle.  And when it is found out that he has a very particular set of magic skills, he gets shipped off again, this time to the Mourn Watch.  The place terrifies him, these reminders of death, and it keeps him awake at night, awoken by nightmares of being crushed under the accusing bodies of his parents, blaming him for their deaths.  And every time he wakes up in terror, he forces himself to calm down, he uses two familiar techniques.

Breath in… hold it in…3…2…1… let it out…

With a shaky hand he pulls out  the golden skull, his greatest treasure, from his breast pocket, and strokes it, while he calms down and settles back to dreamless sleep.

Rook is an ever present thought in his mind.  He searches census tomes the moment he has access, but comes up empty handed. He travels the Fade in his dreams working on a hunch that perhaps she was a Spirit.  What type, he can’t say, her beauty transcends anything the Fade could offer. Nothing.  He does find a Curiosity wisp that follows him around while he dreams, even deciding to cross the Veil to accompany him.

He makes friends with colleagues, including a brilliant but ethically challenged student.  He falls in love.  He falls out of love.  His friendships cool, and he finds out about a way he can banish the fears of death, permanently.  The path is long and arduous, but he is certain he can accomplish his dream. 

He’s in his mid 20’s when he hears about a living newborn infant found by the undead in the long extinct Ingellvar family crypt.  This curious fact, that the spirits inhabiting the undead were able to identify the infant, knew that the baby was in a precarious state without a living being to take care of her, and delivered the child to Vorgoth for safety, all on their own.   It makes him wonder if he can create an undead that is able to learn and act independently .

He's getting tired.  He’s getting old.  He’s getting lonely.  His best friend is gone, banished for pushing too far in her discoveries.  His Curiosity wisp now has a body of his own, but it’s not quite enough for Emmrich.  All that he can look forward to is taking that final, possibly fatal, step to Lichdom.  Ironically, his fear of death is the reason he hasn’t crossed that last threshold.  That and Rook… he still wants to find her.

He receives a letter from Myrna, stating that his knowledge is required for an urgent matter, that one of his long distance colleagues, a lovely elvish lady named Bellara will be coming to visit.  He’s delighted, as she is full of curiosity and her intelligence for her young age astounds him.  

‘Mourn Watcher Zea Ingellvar will be accompanying her as an escort’ Myrna adds in a postscript, ‘Due to the urgent matter Bellara will speak to you of, Ingellvar has been given limited privileges to return to the Necropolis.  Please do not hold her previous actions against her’

He wasn’t planning to.  Her actions in the War of the Banners were heroic and saved countless lives, and he’s always thought it was a travesty of justice to exile her, even if he’s never met her.  He’s always admired people who thumb their noses at the living nobility.  It’s why he and Hezenkoss got along so well before her expulsion.

Bellara is just as lovely and polite as he imagined, shaking his hand excitedly as her eyes glow with admiration.

“It’s an honour to finally meet you in person, Professor.”

“Please…” he insists, “Just call me Emmrich.”  He has a sneaking suspicion he’ll have to remind her that multiple times.

“Oh," she jumps as if she just remembered something she has forgotten, "I should introduce my friend.  Not sure if you’ve met, this is Zea Ingellvar”

His heart stops.  That dimple.  That small scar above her left eyebrow, the silver hair that shimmers like moonlight.  The silver eyes that match the exact colour of the gems in the skull he keeps close to his heart.  All this time, she’s been here, under his very nose.

“Charmed.” She greets him, the same voice that lulled him to sleep over forty years ago, “But you can call me Rook.”

After all this time, he’s finally found her.

[nehpetssanders]

Tessomancy at Madam Puddifoot's (Tea-Sons Greetings)

--------------------------------------

Frankly, I was 'bit' disappointed with the "study" session with Cassandra in Madam Puddifoot's tea shop in the last update, so I decided to do something about it. So, this chapter is for those who feel the same way

--------------------------------------

Winter had settled over Hogwarts that morning, casting the castle in an enchanting blanket of snow. As the chilly winds whispered through the halls, you and your classmates found yourselves in the Divination classroom that looked more like a cross between someone's attic and an old-fashioned tea shop. Everything was illuminated by a soft, crimson glow; the numerous lamps were covered in scarves of dark red, and the curtains were drawn at the windows. It was oppressively warm, and the fire behind the packed mantelpiece was heating a big copper kettle while emitting a thick, nauseating kind of incense. 

Professor Trelawney, draped in flowing fabrics, looked around the room with her usual far-off gaze as she seated herself in a winged armchair in the center of the room.

"Now, my dear students," she began, her voice a melodic, misty murmur, "In the ethereal dance of destiny, we shall embark on a Tessomancy project. The patterns in the dregs of the tea leaves shall unveil secrets yet unknown to you as you gaze into the future! I have already divined the pairs through my Inner Eye, and it has whispered its choices to me."

The class listened intently as Trelawney listed the pairs, connecting students in mysterious ways only she understood, pairing students who are more than likely come to blows or heated duels before they could even have a sip of their tea to read their tea leaves. Case in point: Fischer being partnered up with Daniel (who already had his wand out, just in case), and Colby being partnered up with Ivy. Your other friends, Lottie, Kevin, and Robyn, were not safe from this either, with Robyn being paired up with a quidditch-hating, know-it-all attitude Ravenclaw, Kevin being paired up with a thrill-seeking and daredevil Gryffindor, and Lottie with a disinterested Slytherin.

For each partner she called, she instructed them to take a seat beside their partners

You, on the other hand, are desperately pleading, praying even, to Merlin and whatever wizarding gods you know to spare you from this fate. 

"Cassandra Vole and (Y/N) (L/N)," Trelawney declared, her eyes glazing over as if peering into the mystical threads of fate.

Alas, fate is cruel and has some twisted sense of humor it seems.

You suddenly felt your jaw drop out of disbelief. Daniel, Robyn, Kevin, did the same, while Ivy and Lottie had their hands over their mouth. The rest of the class exchanged glances started murmuring amongst themselves, surprised by the seemingly unlikely pairing. Cassandra Vole, known for her sharp wit and vain attitude, and you, a student whose path (and wand) often crossed with hers. The air seemed to crackle with a blend of anticipation and uncertainty.

After quickly composing yourself, you hesitantly made your way to Cassandra's side, she offered no more than a subtle nod of acknowledgment, before turning away in a huff, leaving you rubbing your nape awkwardly as Trelawney began partnering up the rest of the class. The unspoken understanding was that this was merely an academic collaboration, a project to be completed, and nothing more. You knew this as Professor Trelawney began spending the entire lecture on giving instructions on what to do for the project, expecting a report on their findings before the end of the week.

Looks like you've got your work cut for you, it seems.

--------------------------------------

In the few short hours that followed, whispers of the Tessomancy project spread throughout the castle like fiendfyre. Students discussed with their partners and speculated on the outcomes of their readings. Rumors circulated that Professor Trelawney's divination insights had paired students who, under normal circumstances, might never have worked together, thus they were all bound to fail. You and your friends were, of course, aware of this as you sat in the Great Hall for lunch to discuss the project.

Daniel, who sat beside you, sighed and shook his head, playing with his beans for lunch, his elbow against the table, his head propped up with his hand. "I don't know if Trelawney is trying to deliberately make us fail her class—"

"—or she's just being mental and loony as usual," Robyn interjected, her face flushing from anger after some sort of disagreement with her partner for the project, no doubt it's about the Ravenclaw talking Robyn's ear off for the project.

"Well, knowing Professor Trelawney, it's probably a bit of both." Lottie added as she joined the table, looking a bit disheveled. Looks she too had some disagreement with her partner regarding the project. "She thrives on making everything unnecessarily complicated."

"Complicated is an understatement." Kevin grumbled, "My partner won't stop talking about the alignment of the skies and how it correlates with the steam rising from her tea. I swear, I might need to invest in earplugs if this keeps going for the whole week."

Amused groans and laughs resonated across the table as they shared in the collective struggle that was the Tessomancy project. Amidst the banter, a curious expression crossed Daniel's face as he noticed you being silent throughout, completely immersed in your own thoughts, no doubt worried about your partnership with Slytherin's vain 'Princess'. 

Truth to be told, you had harbored a small crush on Cassandra since your first day at Hogwarts, a crush that quickly waned as you witnessed her... less pleasant qualities. Still, you couldn't deny the charm she exudes—confident, clever, stylish, and powerful. And, of course, incredibly beautiful.

It wasn't that you despised her; you didn't hate anyone. You simply didn't appreciate how badly she treated your friends whenever the opportunity arose. Dealing with bullies had been challenging enough at your previous muggle school, and it was no easier at a magical school like Hogwarts. But you believed in standing up to bullies, no matter who they were.

"Speaking of which, how's your partnership with Cassandra going for you, (Y/N)?" he inquired, snapping you out of your stupor, his eyebrows raised in anticipation.

Robyn, who had been in a bad mood, suddenly perked up, her interest piqued. "Yeah, spill the tea—no pun intended. How's the dynamic between you two?"

While your friends giggled at Robyn's comedic wording, you merely sighed, running a hand through your hair. "Nothing. She just told me to wait for her owl to give me the specifics on when we'll start."

As if on cue, a loud screech from the ceiling caught your attention. You looked up, and a majestic snowy white owl suddenly swooped in, landing gracefully in front of you. Its beak carried a small, emerald-green envelope.

You regarded the owl with a mixture of surprise and apprehension. Taking a deep breath, you reached out, careful not to startle the elegant creature. It was evident whose owl this was, given its immaculate grooming. Cassandra's owl extended its head, presenting the emerald-green envelope, and the Slytherin crest embossed on the seal confirmed its sender. You gently nuzzled the owl and offered a meaty piece of your lunch before it gracefully took flight back to its owner.

"Well, open it!" Robyn exclaimed, her impatience matching the curious glances from your friends.

You examined the envelope, turning it over to see something written that said, "For YOUR eyes only."

Giving your friends a knowing look, they relented, granting you the privacy to explore the contents of the letter. After carefully breaking the wax seal and unfolding the parchment inside, Cassandra's elegant handwriting adorned the small page.

"(Y/N), Meet me at Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop at 3 in the afternoon. Don't be late.  AND DON'T TELL ANYONE. -C.V."

The simplicity of the message struck you. No pleasantries, no unnecessary words. Just a direct command.

"Well? What did the letter say?" Ivy asked inquisitively, already finished with her lunch.

"Can't say, really," you replied, deciding to respect Cassandra's wishes regarding the letter.

Your friends raised their eyebrows at this, looking rather unconvinced, and seemed to assume more than they let on.

"Well, whatever it is," Robyn couldn't resist a teasing remark. "Looks like you've got a date with destiny, (Y/N)."

"More like a date with academic disaster," you mumbled, shaking your head.

The rest of your lunch passed with a mix of laughter and speculations about the mysterious rendezvous. As the appointed time approached, you couldn't help but wonder why Cassandra would pick Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop of all places to meet. The air was thick with anticipation, and you knew that whatever awaited you there would undoubtedly be intriguing, given the circumstances.

--------------------------------------

The remainder of the afternoon crawled by, every hour marked by the anticipation of the looming meeting with Cassandra. You couldn't help but wonder about the purpose of this rendezvous. Was it solely for the Tessomancy project, or did Cassandra have something else in mind? The mystery surrounding her intentions hung in the air like an enchantment.

As the clock hands finally converged at 3 o'clock, you made your way to Hogsmeade and straight Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, a place usually associated with romantic rendezvous. As such you made none of your friends followed you on the way.

Upon arriving, the village of Hogsmeade bustled with activity, students roaming the cobblestone streets, their laughter and chatter intermingling with the magical atmosphere. The quaint tea shop exuded a warm glow, its windows adorned with delicate pink lace curtains and stacked teacups.

Upon entering, the aroma of various teas wafted through the air, creating an atmosphere of coziness. The interior was adorned with pink floral patterns, and small, intricately decorated tables were scattered around the room. You spotted Cassandra at a corner table, her posture composed and her expression already reflecting her disdain for the environment.

"There you are. Took you long enough," Cassandra remarked, her tone cutting through the air. "Well, don't just stand there! Sit down so we can get this over with."

You complied, taking a seat across from her in the flowery and frilly atmosphere of the tea shop. Madam Puddifoot approached with a beaming smile, eager to serve her special Couple's Special tea.

"Welcome to Madam Puddifoot's, bringing people together one cuppa at a time. Can I interest you dears in our Couple's Special?" Madam Puddifoot offered, her eyes glinting with a spark of matchmaking enthusiasm.

"Err, that's okay. Two cups of Earl Grey would be fine," you replied, preemptively dispelling any misconceptions.

"Are you sure? Our strawberry rose tea is made with an infusion of hibiscus blossoms and rose petals. It's sweet, floral, and ever so romantic," Madam Puddifoot persisted.

"Let me make this very clear," Cassandra interjected sharply, "This is not a date. The only reason I'm here with (Y/N) is because Trelawney assigned us as partners on a Tessomancy project. And the tea the Hogwarts house-elves make is vile."

"Very well, two cups of Earl Grey coming right up." Madam Puddifoot, though a bit disappointed, nodded understandingly and left to prepare the ordered Earl Grey.

"Finally. Now let's hurry up and do this stupid reading before anyone we know sees me with you. I'll go first, naturally," Cassandra declared, her impatience palpable. "I'll take a drink and tell you what I see in my tea leaves. You interpret what I say and make a prediction."

As soon as Madam Puddifoot arrived with the tea, Cassandra wasted no time. She expertly took her cup, blowing on the piping hot liquid to cool it down, and sipped until only the dregs remained. Following the instructions provided by Professor Trelawney on scroll of parchment you had on you, Cassandra swills the dregs inside her cup three times with the left hand, then turns the cup upside down on its saucer, waiting for the last of the tea to drain away.

Meanwhile, you frantically rummaged through your satchel, realizing with a sinking feeling that you had forgotten your copy of Unfogging the Future—the key reference for the Tessomancy project. Cassandra, noticing your mild panic, merely rolls her eye at you as she decides to give you her copy, sliding it across the table to you, all the while chastising you for being forgetful.

As the last of the tea drained from Cassandra's cup, the two of you finally began the Tessomancy project in earnest.

"Right," said Cassandra as you opened her book at pages five and six. "So, this blob looks like... an acorn?"

"I think that means..." You consulted Unfogging the Future, tracing you finger on the printed words. "You can expect a windfall of riches in your future."

"Really? Not that I'm surprised. It is the natural outcome, after all, for one as gifted and intelligent as myself." Cassandra replied, a hint of smugness in her tone. "In fact, you'd better pour me another cup. My future's too full of potential for one to be sufficient."

"But—"

Before you could even protest, Cassandra had ordered another two cups of Earl Grey from Madam Puddifoot. The process repeated, with Cassandra going through the same swilling and draining ritual as before. You just sighed at this as you held the textbook reference you had in front of you as Cassandra began peering into her drained cup.

Now I see... a cat? " Cassandra's brow furrowed as she scrutinized her teacup, turning it around as if seeking a better angle to decipher the dregs. "No, a dog? No... both?"

"That's an easy one," you responded confidently, scanning the pages of Unfogging the Future. "You're going to... develop an unlikely relationship with a polar opposite. In, other words, someone you wouldn't expect to get along with. Well, what do you think? Ring any bells?"

Cassandra's gaze shifted from the teacup to you, her skepticism evident, before she finally, ever composed, merely raised an eyebrow.

"It seems the pink and frills have gone to your head," she remarked dryly. "Well, I've had quite enough of this for one day. You can go ahead and leave first."

"But what about my reading?" You interjected.

"I don't have to look at your tea leaves to know what the future has in store for you, do I?"

Intrigued, you prodded, "Oh, really? And what's that?"

Cassandra leaned back, a knowing glint in her eyes, her gloved hand raised near her mouth, stifling a giggle. "A failing grade in Divination."

"Oh, har har. Very Funny." You rolled your eyes at her, "And I'm not leaving my seat until you predict my future, Cassandra." 

The air between you and Cassandra crackled with tension, a silent challenge passing between your eyes. The ambient sounds of the tea shop faded away as the world narrowed down to the space between the two of you. 

The seconds stretched into moments, and the bustling sounds of the tea shop became distant echoes. It was a peculiar tableau, the two of you engaged in a duel of gazes, oblivious to the curious glances from other patrons.

Her gaze was like a storm, intense and unyielding. Dark emerald eyes bore into yours with a sharpness that cut through the awkward silence. It was a contest of wills, a battle communicated through the language of stares. You, on the other hand, maintained a composed exterior, though the undercurrent of nervousness rippled beneath the surface. The challenge was set, and neither of you seemed willing to be the first to look away.

Cassandra's raised eyebrow suggested amusement, as if she found the situation more entertaining than inconvenient. Finally, Cassandra's lips curled into a half-smile, a subtle acknowledgment of the unspoken exchange.

"You're stubborn, I'll give you that. But fine." She flicks her golden blonde hair over her shoulder and sits closely to the table. "Hand me that stupid book," she declared, her words carrying a blend of irritation and amusement, "so I can predict your stupid cup and be done with this!"

In response, you acquiesced silently, sliding Unfogging the Future in her direction. Cassandra seized it without hesitation, her deft gloved fingers flipping through its pages with practiced efficiency. The sound of parchment rustling punctuated the air as she reached the designated pages, her focus shifting from annoyance to analytical determination.

Fortunately, you already have your tea cup prepared so it was a matter of just discerning the dregs.

"So? What do you see?" Cassandra impatiently asked.

"I see..." Your eyes narrowed with effort as you scrutinized the dainty cup. "Some sort of... thin bird? No, wait. Those lines on the edge of the wings continue, forming into some sort of a.... heart? A perfect heart."

Cassandra felt her breath hitch in her throat, and her cheeks warmed slightly before she composed herself almost instantaneously.

She then sighed rather dramatically, pinching the bridge of her nose. "It really does look like the frills and pink went to your head this time, (Y/N)."

"Hey, I'm just telling you as I see it!"

"Well, you clearly need to get your Inner Eye checked," Cassandra rolled her eyes, clearly not amused. "Why don't you go and order us some food from Madam Puddifoot, while I try to make peace with your cup. This whole ordeal is making me famished."

Deciding not to irk the Slytherin girl any further, you gracefully made your way to Madam Puddifoot's to order more tea and some food this time. Meanwhile, Cassandra seized your cup, examining the tea dregs herself. Imagine her surprise when she found out the dregs truly did resemble a heart.

The only difference was you had described it as perfect, but in her 'Eye,' it appeared crooked and blemished. Confused, she consulted "Unfogging the Future" and leafed through its pages until she found what she was looking for.

There were two drawings of a heart, one crooked and one perfectly shaped. The descriptions read: The perfectly shaped heart appears only to the owner of the cup, symbolizing a love that is harmonious and destined to be in his future. When one discerns the heart in its blemished form, crooked in any way, it signifies the fickle love or admiration they hold for the owner of the cup.

Cassandra nearly dropped the cup from utter surprise after reading the last passage from the book. Her eyes widened, and she looked from the cup to the book, realization slowly dawning upon her. The revelation left her in a momentary state of contemplation before she glanced up, meeting your gaze with an unreadable expression.

Returning with the ordered tea and food, you noticed Cassandra's thoughtful demeanor.

"Everything okay?" you asked, unaware of the revelations unfolding in the tea leaves and the pages of the divination book.

Upon speculation, maybe it's because of the fact you had saved her life on different occasions, especially during your nightly excursions in the Forbidden Forest for rare potion ingredients for some project, or maybe because you were the only partner she'd choose during your dance club practices. In fact, Cassandra can’t remember a time in the past few years you and her haven’t been dance partners. And when you asked her about it, she merely responded by saying you were the only one that did not have two left feet.

Whereas other students would praise her and practically throw themselves at her feet begging for her attention, you were the only one who treated her as a fellow student, and she seemed to have grown to admire that in you. Something she'd never openly admit to anyone. Especially to you.

"Yes, everything's fine." Cassandra blinked, snapping out of her introspection.

Upon setting the tray down, you sat back down and helped yourself to another helping of Earl Grey Tea as well as a fresh macaron from the tray. As you observed her, you couldn't help but marvel at the way her usually composed exterior seemed to waver ever so slightly.

"So," you started, trying to break the silence that had settled over the table, "What did your Inner Eye see from my cup?"

"A load of soggy brown stuff," Cassandra replied with a rather unnerving and sickeningly sweet smile.

One you'd wish to never see again, nor ask Cassandra ever again regarding what she saw in your cup.

[johaerys-writes]

I gotta ask about 4. Victorian Patrochilles

Basically this one is a reincarnation AU I started AGES ago... it is set in Victorian London, Achilles is the prince and in line for the throne, and Patroclus is a minor noble, and the meet at a ball and instantly feel this ConnectionTM... like it's one of the first patrochilles things I ever wrote lol, and the first chapter is actually up on AO3 in this collection over here. At first it was only going to be a oneshot but then I started thinking about it more, and I sort of came up with an outline for a full story and started writing it (I opened the file again recently and was surprised at how much I'd actually written) but I abandoned it after a while because I wasn't happy with some plot points and tbh I still haven't figure them out. But there's a lot of it that I still like, here is a small snippet:

I met him later that week. We walked the busy streets of London side by side, and the Prince didn’t seem to mind the mud that clung to his boots or the drizzle that darkened his golden hair to copper. He talked to me cheerfully- he seemed quite fond of talking, but not in the way one blabbers incessantly for the pleasure of hearing one’s own voice. He had much to share with me, and he spoke fast and with confidence, as if he could cram the information of a lifetime in just a few short hours. 

He was different when he was with me. Less aloof, less regal. He had a casual air about it him which he seemed to drop when no one was around; it made him look young, almost boyish—behind his princely facade he hid a cheerful disposition and a razor sharp intellect, as well as a knack for clever puns. 

It wasn’t long before our conversation drifted back to ancient myths and legends, as it normally did when it was just the two of us. 

“The Ancient Greeks were masters when it came to tragic stories,” he said, pushing the glass door of a tea shop open, a small and dainty one hidden in one of the side streets off Baker Street. “The most tragic of all, of course,” he sat by one of the tables, gesturing for me to sit near him, “is none other than that of Achilles and Patroclus. I recall you were quite fond of their love story.”

I self-consciously glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one near us had overheard, even though the Prince didn’t seem to have noticed anything odd about his speech. 

“We have settled, then, that they were lovers?” I asked him with a smile.

“Of course,” he said, without a hint of hesitation. “There can be no question about it. The truth is there, plain for everyone to see, regardless of what historians and scholars say. Left to their own devices, they would argue for centuries whether a tea kettle is black or simply very dark grey.” 

That was another thing about him that I’d noticed; he often spoke blunt truths without any intention to tease or gauge for a reaction. He spoke them because, frankly, that was what they were: the truth, and he had little patience for anything but. It was something I admired about him. 

Well, one of the many things I admired about him, in any case. 

“Indulge me, Your Grace,” I said, lifting the steaming cup to my lips after he had poured the tea. “What is it that you and I know, and all the scholars of the world do not?” 

[kelyon]

On the House 5

After Cruella's ball, Gold takes Belle to his house

Read on AO3

The coach ride away from Cruella’s masked ball was silent. Miss French wouldn’t speak, and Gold could think of nothing to say. The girl--so pale, so trembling--stared out the window into the sooty blackness of a city night. Gold had taken off the scaly coat of his ridiculous costume and draped it over her bare shoulders. Her own costume--that tawdry scarlet rose that profaned her natural beauty--had left her cold and exposed. He had to cover her. He had to protect her. 

Such noble impulses were foreign to Gold’s nature. How many whores and beggars did he pass on the street without notice every day? How many lives had he ruined with deals and debts? What foolishness possessed him to think that he could be a hero to the downtrodden and the wretched?

Then he noticed the way Miss French’s ungloved hand rested against her chin, the way her fingertips brushed against the pink softness of her lips--and he was ready to vanquish all evil in the world in one fell swoop. 

When they arrived at Gold’s house, only the manservant Dove was awake to greet them.

“Rouse the staff,” Gold ordered brusquely. “I want a bath drawn in my room, hot tea, and plenty of food.” He turned to Miss French. “What do you like to eat, my dear? Sweets?”

Wide-eyed and wary, the girl shook her head in bewilderment. “I require nothing.”

The hollows of her cheeks spoke differently.

“Cakes,” Gold said to Dove. “And I’ll have a note, presently, that will need to be delivered to Jefferson tonight.” 

With a slight bow, the servant went off to discharge the orders. If he thought it odd that Gold had come to his own house in the middle of the night in the company of a strange, half-naked woman, Dove knew better than to let it show in his demeanor.

By the time Gold led Miss French upstairs, the scullery maid and the cook had already worked together to bring the big copper bathing tub into his room. A tin kettle of water was heating over the roaring fire.

“Warm yourself.” 

He tried to be gentle, but haste and fury coarsened his tongue. How cruel was the world that an ethereal creature like Miss French would ever suffer so base a trial as cold or hunger? Cora had deprived her of her dignity, of her honor, of the very autonomy of her body. Everything good and beautiful about Belle French had been sold for coin, leaving behind nothing but this piteous wretch.  

“This isn’t necessary,” Miss French said as she slowly let the reptilian coat lower down her shoulders. “I washed before we left for the ball. I’m as clean now as I’m going to get, Mr. Gold.”

To his shame, Gold filled his eyes with the sight of her body, put up for display and decorated with red petals. He saw the full shape of her legs in green stockings. Her arms entirely bare, her bosom pushed up beyond reason. A necklace of thorns pressed against her thin, white neck--and all Gold could think of was to press his lips against the same spots. Ruined as she was, she remained beautiful. As much an object of lust as of pity.

Both passions stirred in his breast. 

“Nonsense.” He tore himself away from the sight of her and went to the clothes press. He pulled out one of his own dressing gowns. “You can wear this until there’s enough water for your bath.”

With meek acquiescence, Miss French took the plush fabric and placed it on the settee beside her. She began to remove what could laughably be called her dress. As she disrobed, she handled the stained and crumpled silk with the same tenderness as she had given his dressing gown. Piece by piece, she folded them neatly and placed them in a respectable stack. She didn’t look up until she was entirely naked. Then she stared Gold straight in the eyes. 

“Are you certain you won’t take me now, sir? I could always have a bath… afterwards.” 

Gold’s jaw clenched, seemingly of its own volition. God, there would be nothing better, would there? To take that pale, timid flesh that stood before him and rouse it into the ruddy boldness of passion. The creature’s eyes were blue as ice, but he could spark a fire in them. He knew he could. He knew she wanted him to. He had worked in her well enough last time. She wanted him. 

It took a considerable effort to step back, away from Miss French. She didn’t follow him. Not even with the slightest twitch of eyes. It was as though having made her offer, she had become inert. There was a deadness inside her now; she had become unalterable as stone. That must be how she bore her livelihood. That must be how she was with every other man who paid for her body.

He took another step away.

“Cover yourself.” Somehow, his voice was softer than it had been before. “And please get warm. The tea will be here soon.”

As if in answer to his words, there was a quick knock at the door. At Gold’s summons, the cook came in with the tea tray, followed by the maid with another bucket of water. The staff worked in silence, the cook setting up the tea things on a table and the maid emptying the kettle of warm water into the tub and placing the new bucket on the hook over the fire. Miss French  had managed to robe herself before the servants had seen her nakedness--though they were surely aware of its presence. 

“Shall I have these washed, sir?” The maid picked up the pile of rags Miss French had been forced to wear as clothes.

“Have them burned.”

“No!” Miss French cried. It was the most passion he had seen from her all night. She addressed the maid. “Just leave them as they are, please.”

Gold scoffed. “You cannot say you have any fondness for these… garments.”

“They belong to Cora,” Miss French said softly. “If they are damaged, she will add the cost to my debt.”

His fist tightened. Cora. The villainess in this petty drama. She was a jackal, feasting on the remains of the dead and the dead-inside. 

Gold kept his composure until the servants left. “Cora will pay for what has been done to you,” he vowed.

“How?” Miss French sank onto the settee. “Everything she has done, she has a right to do. Surely you know that.” Her blue eyes flashed in his direction. “She learned from the best.”

His jaw clenched again. That Cora had learned her wiles from him was lost on neither himself nor Miss French. To any other person--to many other people--he was just as much a villain as Cora was to Miss French. Gold had no claim to moral superiority; he had to argue from the philosophy of lofty ideals. 

“No human being has the right to own another.”

She gave out a harsh laugh. “There are many in the Americas who would disagree with you, and a fair few in this very city. So many of us are bought and sold to each other, even if there are no bills of sale on record.”

Gold came around to the settee. He sat on the far end, with enough space between himself and Miss French to house a capacious chaperone. “How much is your debt to Cora Mills?”

Miss French shook her head. “It was thousands to begin with, the original debts. No matter how hard I work, it always seems to grow. We have to pay for our food, for our rooms, those clothes.” Her pink lips pressed together in a firm line that didn’t suit them. “This past week--since you chose me--she has pummeled me with expenses, and worked me like a dog to pay for them.” The muscles in her neck strained as she tried to keep calm. “Very much like a dog indeed have some of these gentlemen wanted me.”

Trembling, she turned away, looking at some spot on the floor. Gold fought every instinct of his heart that told him to reach out to her, to comfort her. His touch was not what was needed here.

“And still you say that she should not be stopped?”

“No, I say that she cannot be stopped.” Miss French stood and began to pace. “I am in contract with Mrs. Mills, a contract I entered freely.”

Gold rose as well. “You cannot be held to your father’s debts forever. The sale of the house should have--”

“My debts,” Miss French all but sobbed. “They are not in Papa’s name, they are in mine. And the house was in my name. The house was mine to sell before my father left me. They--” Overcome with emotion, she put her hand over her mouth.

She fell to the couch again, her face deathly pale.

“I was so foolish,” she whispered. “My father was on his deathbed and all these men came around with offers and documents and I-don’t-know-what. I signed things just to make them leave and then it turns out some horrid law of maternal inheritance says I’m responsible for all of it. Everything. Not just one sum, but many, unfathomable in their variety and size.”

“And then came Cora,” Gold finished the tale of woe. “Offering to make it all go away.”

Miss French gave a miserable nod. “She seemed so kind at first, a respectable gentlewoman with two girls my age. She even arranged to have Papa buried in the plot next to my mother--I wouldn’t have gotten that courtesy from any debt collectors.”

“How long did those courtesies last?”

 She shook her head. Tears rolled down her fair cheeks. “She promised me that she would treat me as she would her own daughters.” She sniffed. “I ought to have asked Regina and Zelena first what such a relation entailed.

“I should have left as soon as I knew what kind of woman Cora really was.” Miss French went on. “I should have fled in the night or offered a resignation when my servants did. They had the moral backbone I lacked. They had the courage of their convictions.”

“You have courage, my dear,” he assured her. “It takes unfathomable courage to look Cora in the eye and not buckle.”

   “But I did buckle,” she said softly. “She did, eventually, tell me what services I would be expected to provide for the house. I didn’t run, I didn’t fight, I didn’t even say a word of protest. My fate was decided. It is what I deserved, for being foolish enough to fall into her clutches in the first place.”

“And you feel that way still?” Gold asked. “You accept this… slavery because you do not deserve to be free?”

Miss French took a breath, closing her eyes as she slowly exhaled. When she opened them, an unreal serenity seemed to have invaded her features.

“I have made my bed,” she told him. “Now it is my duty to lie in it, with anyone who will pay for me.”

****

He could not say how long it was until the tub was full enough for Miss French to bathe. Long enough, at least, for him to write a note to Jefferson then send it out with Dove for late-night delivery. Long enough for her to drink some tea and nibble on a sandwich of cold beef. 

They didn’t speak. Gold was too full of words to trust himself to say the correct combination aloud. Miss French seemed content to wait in silence until she was spoken to. Again, there was a feeling of inertness about her. A cool composure seemed to separate her from him--and perhaps even from herself. Like a mask held up at a distance from the face. No convincing disguise, but still a complete obfuscation. 

When the time came, the girl removed Gold’s dressing gown. She stood before him, pale and small. Even the features of her that should be the most womanly--her pert breasts and round hips, the gentle curve of her waist--were somehow shrunken and stunted.

“What would you like now, Mr. Gold?” Her low voice was a soft whisper, no louder than the murmur of a stream. It would have been lost in any other setting. “Would you like to wash me? Or join me? Shall I put on a show for your entertainment?”

“No,” Gold rasped, though every one of those suggestions appealed. “I only wish for you to be clean and warm and comfortable.”

Miss French nodded and sank into the water. It came up to her breasts, teasing the show of them with every ripple. She removed the pins from her hair and it fell loose upon her shoulders. A riot of curls, as bedecked with rose petals as her body had been. When she dunked her head under the water, the petals floated to the surface. 

It should have been romantic, petals bobbing up and down like a flotilla of tiny ships on the tempestuous sea of love. It should have been beautiful, the crimson amplified by the warm tones of the copper tub and contrasted against the creamy paleness of a woman’s skin. It should have been tempting. He should want her more than ever. Wasn’t that what she wanted? Or at least what she was paid to want?

No, not paid. Ordered. Somehow, that made a difference. Few prostitutes came to that work because they had many other choices in life. Miss French had even less. Miss French was compelled to work--very much like a dog indeed. She was bullied into it, trapped by fear and deception. 

And yet, that didn’t dampen his ardor. Gold wanted to make her happy, to make her feel. That inertness, that distance, that mask she wore to protect herself--they had all become hateful to him. What had first drawn him to Belle was her sincerity, the sense he had that she was real in some intangible way no other woman in Cora’s house was real. He would have no falsity from her. He wouldn’t touch her unless she truly wanted him to.

“Mr. Gold?” She rose up from the bath like Venus from the sea. Water poured off her body and into the tub. Her half-dry hair was loose and long, the color a most bewitching shade of chestnut.

The bath sheet was on the other side of the room from her. Like a man in a daze, Gold took the cloth in hand and offered it to her. Miss French didn’t cover herself. She squeezed some water out of her hair and then draped the cloth over her shoulders, leaving her exposed to his sight. 

His mouth went dry. He became increasingly aware of his loins. She held out her hand and he helped her out of the tub. 

He dropped her hand as soon as she was on her feet. Even that much contact was enough to drive him mad.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered. 

She beamed a practiced smile. “Why, thank you, sir!”

“No,” he shook his head. “No, please don’t do that. Please don’t pretend with me. And I told you last time: When we’re together, I would have you call me by my name.”

Miss French’s smile dimmed. She looked away from him. In a much more natural voice she said, “Thank you, Rochester.”

She had remembered. Gold’s heart lifted. “Thank you, Belle.”

A shiver went through the girl, at the sound of her own name on his lips.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked her. “Did you have enough to eat?”

“I am very well,” she said. And though Gold wanted to warm her more and fill her up with all the good food she could eat, he accepted what she said as the truth.

“Are you tired?”

She took him by the hand. “We can go to bed, if you like, Rochester.”

Gold swallowed. That wasn’t what he had meant, not at all. But there was no falseness in her manner, no practiced trick of a professional. It was a true and straightforward desire: She wanted to go to bed with him. 

The maid had already turned down his bed. While Belle dried herself a little more, Gold began to undress. His hands were clumsy in their hurry. Buttons popped and collar pins were scattered across the floor. He was down to his last layer when Belle wrapped her naked arm around him.

“Are you ready for me, Rochester?”

He turned to face her. “Belle,” he began, unsure of what else to say. What else existed, except for her? “Belle, I haven’t stopped thinking of you, not for an instant since we last met.”

The color rose in her cheeks, a reaction that would have been hard to fake. “I’ve thought of you as well,” she said. “When I was--but never mind.”

“When you were with other men?” He took both her hands in his own. “You must know I don’t mind your station in life. That is--I want to free you from it, but I don’t blame you or disdain you for it. You must do as Cora commands, you have no choice.”

“I have--”

“No real choice,” he amended before she could insist that the miseries of her life were her own fault. 

The girl’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. Her pink lips were plump and moist. “Last time,” she barely breathed. “You told me you didn’t kiss whores.”

Without another word, Gold took her face into his hands and kissed her, deeply. After a moment, she began to back away, as though she thought the kiss was done, but Gold persisted. He pressed her body up against him as he plundered every treasure of her lips. He let her go reluctantly, only when they both needed to breathe. 

“You,” he looked into her eyes, “are not a whore, sweetheart.”

Belle was trembling. “When I’m with you, Rochester, I almost feel like I’m not.”

He kissed her again, softly this time. He wrapped both arms around her small body. He drew her into him not only for his own pleasure, but for their mutual oneness. In this moment, he was her protector, her stability. Like the weary pilgrim who finds shelter from the storm in the cleft of the rock, so Belle French would now and forever find shelter in the arms of Rochester Gold.

He swore it to himself. 

They fell to the bed. Gold covered her with kisses. Belle’s breath came out in short gasps of shock and delight. He devoured her, much more roughly than was wise, but she made no protest. She kept kissing him back, kept touching him, kept herself open and aching for his hands. 

“Rochester?” she asked when one hand had slid into the paradise between her legs. “Will you--that is, can you…?” Her large eyes held the most innocent desire Gold had ever seen. “Like last time?”

“Do you mean when I made you come?” He twitched his fingers and she inhaled sharply. “Like that?”

Belle nodded. “I have asked men to touch me, if they seem amenable. And I have tried to administer the same touches upon myself. But the results never equal when you did it.”

He believed her. She was too unsure, too vulnerable to be giving him a pretense. When Belle lied to him, it was to give him what she thought he wanted, not to ask for her own desire. 

“Oh Belle.” He moved his fingers inside and out of her wetness. He stroked the nub that made her cry out in pleasure. She stiffened in his arms like a bowstring ready to let loose. She rose up into his touch and he was there to meet her. 

“Do it,” he whispered. “Come for me, Belle.”

He increased his speed and she shuddered with every sensation. She shook and sighed and moaned and screamed with the joy of it.

“Rochester,” she panted. “Rochester!”

“I’m here.” He held her against his chest and kept one hand pressed into her mound. It throbbed in time with her passion, the most beautiful rhythm.

He slid down her smooth body, past her hollowed stomach and into the crevasse of her womanly places. He placed tender kisses on the bones that protruded from her hips. When he began to do the same to her curls, she recoiled. 

“No, don’t!” Belle cried. “Please, Rochester, it’s filthy.”

He grinned at her. “Dearest, I just watched you take a bath.”

“No,” she insisted. She tried to close her legs. “I mean, I’m filthy. I’m--”

“Belle,” he whispered. “I just told you, I don’t see you as a whore.”

“Then why do I have such whorish lusts? Why do I want so? Why do I burn in my body at even the thought of you? Of what you do? I lust for you as much as every customer we have lusts for us. I’m horrible!”

“Sweetheart.” He didn’t move from her hips, but caught her hands in his own. He squeezed her, gently. “My sweet Belle, the sin of lusting for a man in your heart is quite the mildest of vices.”

“But--”

“The sin is in the perversion of what is natural and good. What those men do to you is a perversion. What we’re doing here--this is the natural state of goodness. What I feel for you, my Belle, is the most noble impulse I’ve ever known. And if I express that nobility of mind by giving you pleasure in the body, and if you receive pleasure in turn, how is that anything but the greatest good in the world?”

She looked down at him, her eyes moist. Gold had never been so florid or philosophical while making love to a woman, but it felt right. Everything with Belle felt right.

“Let me pleasure you,” he said. “Let me show you the goodness your body is capable of.”

She licked her lips, slightly, and then nodded. Her body relaxed. Her legs eased open for him. He saw her muff, her nether-lips, ever as pink and plump as the lips above. 

And as with the lips above, he kissed them. The way he didn’t kiss whores.  

He tasted her slowly, dragging his tongue along her hot flesh. The nectar within these petals was fresh and warm, an intoxicating brew. He chased after the taste of it--the taste of her--delving ever deeper into her womanhood.

Belle’s legs squeezed around his shoulders. One hand dug into his back and the other gripped his hair. He relished the pain, relished the pleasure he was giving her. He relished the self-control she still clung to, even as he resolved to break it.

He licked her, lapped at her, worried her sensitive spots with his teeth. Above him, Belle grew vocal again. She whimpered and moaned, but never said a word about stopping. He went faster, filling her with his fingers and rubbing her higher and higher. He pushed his mouth against her until he was forced to draw breath or perish--and even then, he was ready to face death for her glorification.

For she was glorious, his Belle. She was a quaking star, a being of pure light. As she wailed and begged, there was a supernatural air about her. This quiet, fae thing who could be roused into a goddess. A goddess profaned, yes. A goddess befouled and desecrated. But she could be restored. All she needed was the right high priest offering the right libations to clothe her in the radiance she was born to. 

His goddess came with the might to shake the earth. She howled and wailed and sang her pleasure. He licked her up, drop by drop, until she could bear no more.

What fools her customers were, Gold thought. To have this remarkable woman in their clutches and to use only the smallest part of her. And what a fool Cora was to waste a prize like Belle on any man who came off the street. A girl like Belle could be a courtesan for a prince: A perfect lady by day and a passionate lover by night. She could be a queen. She deserved to be a queen, at least to one man.

After giving her a moment, he entered her. He mounted her, had her spread out before him like a feast. He fucked her slowly, reverently, as befitted such a creature. She wrapped her arms around him as he moved.

“I will do anything for you, Belle.”

She shook her head. “Let’s not make promises we can’t keep.”

“This is a promise,” he sighed as he pushed into her, deeper and deeper. “These actions, what we do for each other. That is a promise.”

“So many others do the same thing--”

“Do you want them?” God, she was wet! She was hot and smooth and had a grip on him that would never release. “Do you think of them after they leave you?”

“I try not to think of them while they’re with me.”

“But you think of me.” He pushed in, drawing her legs up to his chest so he could feel every inch of her. “Don’t you?”

“I do.” She threw her head back, her voice heavy with unspoken emotion. “Oh yes, Rochester, I do think of you.”

“Then I will think of you--” with a sudden shudder, he poured himself inside her. “Forever.”

[magickmama777]

LOVE POTION TEA 🫖💕 💕🫖✨

1 pinch rosemary

2 teaspoons black tea 3 pinches thyme

3 pinches nutmeg

3 fresh mint leaves

6 fresh rose petals

6 lemon leaves

💕To make another person fall in love with you, brew this tea on a Friday during a waxing moon.

Place all ingredients in an earthenware or copper tea kettle. Boil three cups

Place all ingredients in an earthenware or copper tea kettle. Boil three cups of pure spring water and add to the kettle. Sweeten with sugar or honey, if desired.

Before drinking, recite this magickal rhyme:

BY LIGHT OF MOON WAXING

I BREW THIS TEA

TO MAKE (name) DESIRE ME.

Drink some of the tea and then say: GODDESS OF LOVE HEAR NOW MY PLEA

LET (name) DESIRE ME!

SO MOTE IT BE SO MOTE IT BE

On the following Friday, brew another pot of the love potion tea and give some to the person you want to love you. He or she will soon begin to fall in love with you.

[polymorphousculturevulture]

A 'spirit kettle' for tea, guarded by a basilisk, made of wood, bronze and copper, at the Museum of Samovars and Bouillottes in Russia

via dduane

[sleeplesssmol]

Cultural References: Samovars

Samovars are traditional Russian and Middle Eastern tea urns or kettles. They are typically made of metal, often brass or copper, and have a distinctive shape with a central chimney for holding burning charcoal or other solid fuel. The design allows the water in the surrounding chamber to heat up, keeping it hot for extended periods. Samovars are used to boil water for making tea, and they are an integral part of tea culture in these regions. Traditionally, tea concentrate (zavarka) is prepared in a small teapot, and hot water from the samovar is added to dilute it to the desired strength before serving.

[omgkatsudonplease]

Title Trick or Treat!: Bright Copper Kettles

“Here you are,” said Harry, placing a piping hot mug of tea down on the kitchen table across from Malfoy. Malfoy. Of all the people who had to blow into his cottage out here in the middle of nowhere, it had to be Draco sodding Malfoy. Harry truly had the worst luck sometimes.

“Cheers,” said Malfoy, grey eyes boring into Harry’s as he raised said mug. Harry reciprocated with his own. 

Malfoy took a sip of the tea before making a face, and then caught sight of Harry’s judgemental stare and quickly coughed and looked away. 

“Not to your taste?” challenged Harry, arching his eyebrows.

“Not Grey Lady?” wondered Malfoy, before examining the label dangling from the tea bag. “Earl Grey? Must be some Muggle brew.”

“Well, I didn’t realise the Pureblood Tea Patrol was popping by to pay me a visit,” replied Harry waspishly. 

Malfoy’s cheeks turned a faint shade of pink. “It’s just until the storm has passed. Why you chose to live somewhere where the storms can regularly affect one’s magic is… utterly beyond me.”

“All the easier to avoid magical intruders.” Harry shrugged.

Malfoy’s mouth flattened briefly, before he sighed and took another sip of his tea. Harry leaned back in his own seat, savouring the rest of his decidedly Muggle English Breakfast.

“How long has it been since you and… girl Weasley…” Malfoy’s voice trailed off hopelessly. 

Harry snorted. “Her name’s Ginny. And it fell apart not that long after the War, actually.” She couldn’t bear to be with someone who sidelined her, and he couldn’t handle the way she kept wanting to burrow into things he’d rather leave well alone. The War was over. No need to dwell. 

“Oh,” was all Malfoy said. “My condolences?”

Harry snorted again, getting up to grab the copper kettle off the hob to refill his mug. “What about you and… what’s-her-face Greengrass?”

“Asta?” corrected Malfoy. “In France. The Riviera’s more salubrious for her health, allegedly.”

“Oh.” Harry wasn’t quite sure how to feel about all this—about catching up with Draco sodding Malfoy at his own kitchen table. Like they were nothing more than distant acquaintances trading pleasantries, rather than the nemeses they’d been back in Hogwarts days. 

They fell into a semi-silence, broken only by Malfoy mashing at his tea bag with the spoon. “Could use some more milk and sugar,” he remarked. 

“Just ran out of milk this morning,” said Harry, as he set down the sugar bowl in front of his old nemesis. He then went to refill the kettle and popped it back on the hob.

Malfoy stirred in a heaping spoonful of sugar. Harry had remembered him liking the sweets his parents used to send him at Hogwarts. Typical. 

“So you and… Asta,” he said, resuming his seat. “Going well? Or…” his eyes narrowed at the way Malfoy seemed to hunch a bit at his wife’s name. “Trouble in paradise, I’m guessing.”

“Perceptive, Potter,” drawled Malfoy, no longer looking him in the eye. “But it’s hardly any of your business whether or not my wife and I are ‘having trouble’.”

“You asked after me and Gin; I thought it was only fair,” Harry shot back.

Malfoy’s mouth crinkled again. “Would I be here in the arse-end of Merlin-knows-where with you if Asta and I were incandescently happy together?”

“Yes, what brought you up here, anyway? I mean, to be blown off-course on a broom in such a storm—”

“Mysteries wants to know why those storms are affecting people’s magic,” said Malfoy shortly, just as the kettle began to whistle. “And I intend to get to the bottom of it.”

(drop a title in my ask and get a bit of the fic i’d write for that title!)

[syn4k]

Pix was up late again as he often was, especially when the seasons changed to spring. The night flowers that bloomed in the Capital were especially nice, and perfumed the air gently while he shined his flashlight on a bit of dirt near the Catacombs.

Nearby, gravel crunched.

Pix kept poking around in the dirt. There were a lot of night creatures around here after all, and Winchester, who he was letting roam about tonight. He didn't have any meetings planned, after all. The gravel crunched again.

"Hello?"

Pix looked up at the sound of his own voice.

"Oh, hello," he said automatically, standing up and brushing the dirt off of his jeans. "Uh, can I help you?"

"You have my voice," said the other man in a tone that was a good mix of suspicion, wariness, and wonder. Well as he might.

"And you have mine," said Pix. "Please don't tell me your name is also Pixlriffs and you're an archaeologist."

"Well, you got the name right," said the other Riffs, scratching the back of his head. "Not an archaeologist, though."

"Thank the gods," said Pix. "Well, I was working on something, but if you need a place to stay for the night-"

"Oh, no," said Riffs hastily. "I don't want to bother whatever you've got going on here. I just sort of wandered in, and I'd like directions."

"Bother?" asked Pix, looking a bit closer. "Dude, you have no idea how rare it is to just randomly be met with another version of..." he waved one hand vaguely, "whatever this is. Besides, trust me, I have had much bigger bothers than whatever you may be. I can get you a map, but most of the server is incredibly dangerous at night. You can stay out here if you want, but I'm making some tea."

Pix turned around and walked towards the entrance to the Catacombs, half hoping that this Pix would follow him, half hoping he wouldn't. This was definitely not something they taught you how to manage in college. Something was definitely a bit off about this guy, but Pix figured that if he was anything like him (which he probably was), he'd like some tea at least.

In the lower levels of the Catacombs, Pix had a small electric kettle/coffee maker and a modest but well-kept kitchen. He may be sleeping in a literal crypt, but he preferred to have power for simple things like this. Putting some water in from a sink nearby and humming as he filled in the kettle and grabbed a teabag from the cabinet, he heard quiet tentative footsteps coming down the stone steps.

"Welcome to my humble abode," he said without turning around. "I have a few extra cups- if you're fine with a mug, all my teacups are dirty. I have a couple small containers of instant coffee, some chamomile tea, Earl Grey, black tea..."

"I mean, if you insist," said Riffs from behind him, sitting in one of the chairs surrounding a small wooden table. "I don't plan on staying for long." His voice was tinged with something strange, maybe guilt, maybe grief, and that was a tone so strange to hear in his own voice that Pix finally turned around to get a good look at his doppelgänger.

Pix didn't look in the mirror a lot, but he knew enough about his own face to see that this man had basically the exact same one as his, albeit a bit thinner in the cheekbones. Actually, he was a lot thinner everywhere. He wore a long sand-covered cloak embroidered carefully with- was that copper thread? alongside simple brown khakis, a light blue shirt and a set of wayworn brown leather sandals.

Riffs was looking at the table despite sitting sideways in his chair, and Pix figured it wasn't worth the trouble to try and make eye contact.

"So," he said, folding his arms and leaning back against the counter as the water behind began to steam. "What brings you here?"

Riffs shrugged, a small, embarrassed thing. "I wander around a lot," he replied. "Sometimes I end up in some... strange places."

"Well, clearly," said Pix. "It'd take a lot of strangeness for you to end up here of all places. Caffeinated or non-caffeinated tea?"

"Either works," said Riffs, looking up for the first time during the conversation. "I'm used to staying up late anyways." His eyes were a dark, stormy grey. Pix nodded and turned back to his tea, wondering if this was all some elaborate prank. Joel's work, probably.

Then again, Pix wasn't sure that Joel had the power to bring dead men back from the history books.

"My map's somewhere in the other room, but I can give you a brief," he said as he dropped the teabags into the cups. "Sugar?"

"No thanks."

Pix nodded. "You're currently in the Ancient Capital, which is essentially where I poke around in the dirt for fun and store a bunch of old artifacts in crumbling buildings. To the east is Gobland, headed by Emperor Fwhip-"

"Fwhip?" asked Riffs.

"Yeah," said Pix. He sighed. "And I have a feeling you might recognize some of the other names here as well, although most of them don't really care for history."

"Thank the sands," muttered Riffs under his breath. Pix, ignoring that, took the teabags out of the cups. Walking over to the table, he set them down- one for him, one for Riffs.

"Thank you," said Riffs, nodding before taking a sip. Pix nodded back and took a sip himself. There was a quite awkward silence of about 20 seconds as both men clearly tried to figure out how to start what was sure to be a mortifying conversation.

"So," started Riffs slowly. "You're obviously me, but also not me. You're different somehow."

"I've noticed," said Pix, taking another sip.

Riffs sighed and ran his fingers through his (rather short) hair. "How do you even talk about things like this?" he asked with a short laugh. "It's like, 12am. I'm not entirely convinced this isn't a fever dream of some sort."

"I think both of us are awake," said Pix, pinching his own arm lightly just to make sure. "I do have a question for you, though."

"Go ahead."

"Care to explain how the Copper King of Pixandria ended up 12,000 miles from this location in the dead of night when he's been dead in this world for over two thousand years?"

Riffs raised his eyebrows, but managed to keep his drink down. Impressive. "How did you figure me out so fast?"

"How about we exchange answers. I'm curious."

Riffs laughed again, a quieter thing this time. "Alright. When I said I was wandering, I meant the desert. I uh, did a thing I'm not too proud of, so I decided to go on a hike to think things over."

This sounded familiar. "A very long hike, hmm?" answered Pix.

"Okay, you answer me now."

"Well," started Pix, putting his cup down, "I've been studying you for roughly fifteen years now. There are records, you know, and I've translated them. I know about the demon. I know about the ancient emperors. I'm not sure if it's just some cosmic coincidence that the guy who ruled the Desert Empire happens to share my name and face, but I do think this may have happened for a reason."

"You, my good sir, are terrifying," said Riffs matter-of-factly.

Pix shrugged. "I try not to be. I call it being direct. I'm sorry if I'm pressing too hard," he said with a small laugh of his own. "It's just not every day that you meet the Copper King in the flesh. It goes against my nature to not ask you a bajillion questions."

"I mean, that's fair," said Riffs with a shrug. "But, fill me in a little. What do your books tell you?"

"Records are scarce and often very damaged," said Pix, "but those that exist say that the Copper King mysteriously vanished from his empire about 5 years after its height."

"And after that?" Riffs asked quietly.

"It faded completely into oblivion," said Pix. "All mentions of it had completely ceased by the time the Fall rolled around."

There was a silence of about a minute then, in which Riffs looked at the countertop, then the ceiling, then the countertop again, then the mug, wearing the expression of a man who had been wrestling with something very large for very long. Pix kept his eyes down.

"I'm sorry," he said eventually.

"No," said Riffs, looking up and looking him clearly in the eye. "I'm the one who asked. Would you like to know the real meaning behind that 'mysterious dissapearance'?"

"Fill me in," said Pix, leaning back.

"The Copper King," said Riffs in a grandiose but unfathomably bitter tone, "exiled himself 5 years after his kingdom entered its golden age for the harm he'd done to his people and his Vigil, deeming himself unfit to walk in its light, and never once looked back." He drained his cup of tea.

So that was it.

"Well, I'd need a citation for that," said Pix, "but that'd look great in a thesis paper."

"We even have the same humor," said Riffs, exasperated. "How did we turn out so differently?"

Pix took a good, long look at the man sitting across from him at the table, perpendicular to the counter. His voice was indeed filled with both shame and grief, but another thing now too- loathing. That was a question Pix could not answer over one cup of tea, anyways, but he did have an inkling.

"Records also say," he said softly, "that the people of Pixandria looked for their king years after his dissapearance, right up until the collapse of the government. Since official records end there, there's a good chance they kept going later than that."

"Did they ever say why?" asked Riffs, staring at the ceiling.

"Every year, it is told, they added another candle to his pile in the Vigil."

Riffs continued looking at the ceiling.

"If you're looking for closure, you won't find it here," said Pix. "I've got my own life going on. I can point you in the right direction, but not much more than that. Seldom do the annals of the past give satisfying conclusions to present problems, but sometimes they can give people ideas."

Riffs sighed and sat back up in his chair, hunching forwards a bit now. "Wise words," he said. "I'm glad you've found your peace here. I, in the meanwhile, am still looking for mine. Maybe I'm destined to wander forever, who knows?"

"If you end up popping up back here in another 20 or so years, me and my kettle will be waiting for you," said Pix. Riffs nodded.

"The uh, the map's in the room one level up and to the left in an item frame," said Pix. "You can keep it. I can always make another one."

Riffs nodded and stood up, looking up the stairs then back at Pix. "Well, this is goodbye then."

"Yep."

"See you around, maybe?"

"See you around perhaps, and may the stars light your journey well."

Riffs gave him a smile, the first one Pix had seen from him all evening and, with a rustle of fabric up the stairs, he was gone.

[jomiddlemarch]

That it alone is high fantastical

“Oh, Mother, you’ll never guess! You’ll never guess in century of guessing!” Rilla cried out, sounding so much as she had as a little girl, for a moment, Anne could convince herself the War had never happened and that somewhere in Rainbow Valley, Walter sat writing a crown of sonnets in his leather-bound journal, his face dappled by the light, back braced against the bole of a birch tree, his grey eyes unfocused as he searched for his next word.

There was still a white stone in the graveyard. Shirley was in Toronto, having refused (albeit politely) to return to Glen St. Mary, much to Susan’s dismay, and Jem walked with a pronounced limp, his uneven gait announcing him as much as Mary’s voice.

There was a mystery there, Jem and Mary Vance, but Anne couldn’t see any way through it and Gilbert, lying beside her in bed, both of them tired but sleepless, told her not to try. Jem had seemed less removed, less falsely cheerful lately, and had begun talking about the medical course again, perhaps a specialty in obstetrics, a hospital practice. As far away from men dying in battle as he can get, Gilbert had observed and Anne had recalled Joyce’s little face, white as a mayflower blossom, and held her tongue.

Rilla, remarkably, given her exuberant entrance, had done the same in the absence of Anne’s response. Miss Oliver had left Ingleside some weeks ago, so there was no one to suggest Rilla either elaborate or calm herself, as her likeness to a whistling copper tea-kettle was increasingly pronounced.

“If I’ll never guess, dear, you must tell me,” Anne said. It was a relief that Rilla could still be the young girl she ought to be, for all that she wore Ken Ford’s diamond ring on her finger and was capable of a brisk, warm matronliness when it came to raising Jims, now reserved for the writing of letters to his new British stepmother and clucking over the missives she received.

“Faith Meredith has eloped!”

Anne did admit to herself she would never have guessed that, because for all her imagination, she wouldn’t have guessed something impossible.

“But, Rilla, Jem is with your father today, doing the Lowbridge rounds. Susan and I packed a lunch with plenty of pie for Dad and some of that flapjack Jem took to after being in England,” Anne said. He’d been in hospital in England, recovering from the injuries he’d sustained at the Front, in the prison camp, during his escape, none of which was spoken of. Only flapjack and stewed tea and how no cook in England was a patch on Susan and that you may tie to, uttered with some semblance of his old roguish humor.

“I didn’t say she married Jem, Mother!” Rilla exclaimed. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright. She had a look of Gilbert at his most delighted about him, an expression Anne remembered from their childhood. Anne opened her mouth to speak but Rilla interrupted.

“It’s Bertie Shakespeare Drew! Faith Meredith is Mrs. Bertie Shakespeare!” Rilla said.

If Anne hadn’t already been sitting down, she would have, suddenly and gracelessly. As it was, the shirt she’d been mending fell from her lap.

“That’s—why, Rilla, are you sure?”

“I heard it directly from Mary Vance,” Rilla said, lifting a hand to stop Anne from speaking. “And Miss Cornelia Bryant. You know Miss Cornelia has no taste for gossip. Miss Cornelia’d heard it from Mrs. Meredith—”

“Poor Rosemary,” Anne said, before she could stop herself.

“Why poor Rosemary? I suppose they thought Faith and Jem would make a go of it, at least, perhaps Reverend Meredith and Mrs. Meredith did, but the War’s done funny things to people and Faith and Jem, they just didn’t fit any longer,” Rilla said. Sometimes, Anne felt Rilla reminded her of someone she couldn’t name and realized her youngest daughter spoke with the wisdom Anne’s own mother might have had. Plenty of folks in the Glen would find such a thought eerie, but Anne was comforted, for all that she ought to be the one offering a thoughtful explanation rather than receiving it.

“I suppose I meant the surprise, an elopement—”

“They must not have wanted to wait. Or were afraid someone would try to talk them out of it. Bertie’s mother maybe,” Rilla said.

Rosemary or her father, Anne thought. Jem, if he’d been given the chance, perhaps. Perhaps not, if Rilla was correct.

“Bertie Shakespeare Drew,” Anne said. “I remember when he was born. He’s just Jem’s age.”

“He’s not much like you remember him, Mother. He’s all tall and stalwart now and they say he’s going in for engineering, that he learned quite a bit in France, found he had a talent for that sort of thing. And his ears don’t stick out quite so much anymore,” Rilla said.

“There’re more things on heav’n and earth,” Anne said, mangling the quote a bit, fairly certain Rilla would not correct her. “D’you suppose Faith calls him Bertie? Or his full name—it’s quite a mouthful.”

Queenly Faith Meredith, the undisputed beauty of Glen St. Mary, who had a sense of humor but also a sense of herself as beyond any teasing, now to be Mrs. Bertie Shakespeare Drew. Anne smiled to herself and thought how Mary Vance would find a way to make Jem grin over it all. She’s lucky to get him, Mary would say, reversing the order the Glen would have assumed, and Mary, canny and unexpectedly kind, would have the right of it, perhaps.

Susan would be quite outraged and the pastry of her next pie might suffer for it, but Gilbert had always taken an unchristian glee in Susan’s outrage and wouldn’t mind the pastry being a bit heavier. It was still the best piecrust on Prince Edward Island, now that Mrs. Rachel Lynde was no longer living to give Susan a run for her money.

“Miss Cornelia said Faith was heard to call him Will, when she spoke to her parents. It’s after Shakespeare of course, and because he was so determined they marry,” Rilla said. 

“And because Faith wanted to,” Anne said. She wasn’t sure if she meant the elopement or the name, but it was all of a piece.

“Miss Cornelia said they’d gone to New York for their honeymoon and she hoped Faith didn’t come back with a bunch of silly Yankee airs but Mary and I didn’t think that was likely,” Rilla said, sitting down beside Anne, picking up the shirt and starting to sew.

“She didn’t come back from England any different, after all,” Rilla said.

“Except that she didn’t marry your brother,” Anne replied.

“D’you know, Mother, even without the War, I don’t think they’d ever have gone through with it, Faith and Jem,” Rilla said. “It was, how shall I put it, like a childhood fairy tale, the honorable knight and the maiden fair, all sorts of adventures they had in Rainbow Valley. They were always going to grow up. We all were.”

Not Walter, Anne’s heart said. Not Joyce.

“I’m glad of Ken’s name, anyway. And don’t worry, I wouldn’t elope for anything. I want our families around us, as many as we can get, even if we have to wait. We’re rather good at that,” Rilla said. She’d finished the one shirt and picked up another. She peered at it, frowned. “I can’t think what Dad does to his clothes—”

“I’ve made up a thousand stories to try to explain that and I still don’t think I’ve figured it out,” Anne said. “Some things, my darling girl, are beyond explanation.”

This one's for @freyafrida because I didn't manage to squeeze Faith/Bertie Shakespeare into my Jem/Mary fic...

[klowncrunch]

The smell of copper

Warning lol this is me cringe posting about Frostkettle

Uhhhh. Vague desc of blood warning. Doomed Yuri fr

----🏆----

You have just killed the girl you love.

There is this unimaginable guilt that wracks your body as you wait by her side. It feels like the first time you ever had a panic attack. But you don't have those anymore. You're grown, you know how to breathe through it. Its just the smell of corpses wafting up your nose and choking you. It's just the corpses. It's just the blood. The distinct copper smell. Like the family tea kettle. It's just copper.

There's no doubt in your heart that she'll come back. He promised you forever with her. It's right at your fingertips yet you can't feel the warmth of glory. You can't hear the beating drums of success. Why can't you hear her heart? She should be back by now. She should be clutching on to you and thanking you. She should be back.

You hold your head to her chest. Maybe she's just...taking a few minutes more. Lucy was always one to lag behind. Especially in the forest... she'd take her time. She always said it was to examine the flowers. You love Lucy, she cared too much. She was too busy with the ethical options, that's what you liked about her. She was your canary, your red alert, she always stopped you when you went too far.

But she didn't stop you here. Some part of her- must've agreed? Right? Lucy wouldn't hide things from you. You're best friends.

She's your best friend. You love her. She knows that right? Even in her last moments, she knew right? You told her it... Often. You think you did. You hope you did. But you can't remember The last time you did. When's the last time you told her you loved her?

You feel your necklace Press against your bloodied uniform. The Ritual looks much different when you're willing to give up your life. You tried to get her to give it up as well. You tried to make her see reason. But by the end of it. All of you had to take drastic measures, and Lucy put up a good fight. You could barely managed to keep focused on her through the volley of spells and counter spells.

Your knife grazed her half of the necklace. When you snuck up on her. And stabbed her in the heart. It felt a little bit too on the nose to stab her in the back. You find that almost comedic. This was good for her, you knew this would be good for her! It's the way to beat the bad kids, to be successful, you have been trying your entire life to succeed. To be a hero. And you were so considerate letting her and the others come with you.

You squeeze the dirt. And move your hands up to squeeze her sweater. Waiting for something. Her blood and the dirt mix together to create a copper color. And you feel so guilty for staining her ivory turtleneck.

You did this so you wouldn't be alone in your successes, sharing it with an ego maniac like Porter. He's just a means to an end.

She's supposed to be your end.

She's supposed to be in your end.

When you and her were kids. She would wrap her hands around yours, behind the school building. You would just sit and cry together, with the few minutes you had between classes. It's hard to be a halfling in a school dominated by people who are bigger and scarier than you, who mock you for your appearance, who mock you for your family name. You thought the family kettle was cool, so you brought it to show the people you wanted to be your friends. And by the end of the day it ended up with four different dents.

You were so angry. You were so hurt. She made it better. You know she made it better so why isn't she making it better now? Why isn't she back already? You yell at her. By this point you're begging. Sobbing over her body. You can see Jace looming like the coward he is right behind a tree in front of you. You scream at him. Telling him to go away.

You think on some level. Jace thinks of you as what he was, a failure, it's no secret that he has no confidence in himself without the other. You're gripping onto Lucy and Ruben, by this time has already been walked away by the others. The last of them to leave you alone? Is Jace surprisingly. It's hesitant you can tell, by the way his footsteps pause. But it's not long before he hurries off.

Maybe it's out of some twisted form of respect for your grieving. You don't even know. At what point did it set in? The smell of copper, the taste of copper, the color, the feeling. The fading warmth of your favorite cup of tea, a fire put out, burning passion that's faded. Lucy Frost blade will never see her next birthday.

She can't make it better this time.

She's dead.

It's been hours.

You've ruined it. You don't get to have the ending you wanted.

You'll get the ending you deserve.

Whatever it takes.