my contributions to @lovelikeyoursfest for the first prompt, “the start of something new”. these are technically both excerpts from longer in-progress fics featuring my apprentice, laurel, but they happened to fit the theme so well i thought at least part of them deserved to see the light of day. consider this a teaser for my future works if u find urself interested~
chronologically, nadia comes first, julian can be found under the cut
Nadia & Laurel
January, 5 years ago
The whole of Vesuvia thrums with the energy of the masquerade, like one large body set to motion at last after a long winter. The lights, the reeling crowds, they pulse and pump as they make their way along the arterial canals, upwards, always upwards, to the highest reach of the city -- to the beating heart of it all -- the palace. Laurel catches Asra’s hand in her own, dragging him along, or he her, or perhaps they simply get swept away together by the throng, laughter bubbling on her lips for what feels like the first time in months.
Try as one might, it is easy to get separated once the party truly takes hold of the palace. The hoi polloi of Vesuvia clamor towards the offered food and drink, while the elite swan about and entertain themselves with chatter and gossip. It is not with intent that she loses track of Asra somewhere past the room full of enchanted, talking statuary. One moment he is there, and the next he is not, the space he once occupied at her side now taken up by three bustling women in matching silver gowns and masks done up like swans, all vying for entry into the room. It matters little to Laurel. Asra will find her eventually, when he cares to be found himself. He always does, somehow, whether she cares for him to or not.
There is little intent to where she wanders, keen to let herself be drawn wherever the whims of the party may take her. She knows there is something surrounding her -- a pall of grief, though it seems too melodramatic a sentiment. It is a palpable, invisible thing about her nonetheless. People walk around her, unsure of why, rowdy drunkards don't dare to jostle or bump her. Her own personal never-mind-me spell, cast without intent simply by virtue of existing. Their disinterest rankles, but she shoves the ill-feeling down deep. It's not them she's here for, anyway. A tall glass of fizzing wine makes its way into her hand, plucked deftly from a passing servant’s platter, and she carries it along in her gloved hand, sipping occasionally, leaving a smear of bright red along the rim of the glass from her painted lips.
The heavy press of the party lessens as she finds herself on the veranda, the roar in her ears fading, carried away on the cool evening breeze. It chills her overheated skin, bare beneath only a few thin layers of chiffon and satin, and she relishes the prickle of gooseflesh it leaves in its wake like a kiss. She takes her glass and drains the last of the golden wine too quickly, and trades it for another -- something pink and dangerously sugared this time. This too she finishes in a few deep gulps, setting the empty glass back onto the bemused servant's tray and taking another before they have time to even move away. Alone, save for the alcohol that burns in her too empty stomach, she wanders the less crowded gardens, full of others who have little interest in being found. She hums along to a familiar tune as she passes through a faint cloud of sound, drifting over the tops of the immaculately trimmed hedge walls.
She feels sweet with wine and song, the lightest she has felt all year. Here, the sounds and smells, the anonymous, whirling multitude of bodies-- they keep out what Laurel would rather forget. Here there is no responsibility, no pitying glances from familiar patrons, none of Asra's well-intentioned saccharine condolences. No one knows her here, not behind the gilt painted mask. She is hardly herself, if she wants not to be, and oh how desperately she craves the chance to not be herself, if only for just a little while. That is the true magic of the Count’s masquerade, something far more powerful than what she could throw together in a mortar at home and call such. She is only the swell of the music. It lifts her slippered feet, carrying her in some semblance of dance as she walks the cobbled path, eyes closed in what would feel almost like joy, if she could remember the feeling.
There is no one on the path with her, no one to see her dizzy, stumbling attempt at a coranto, so when her body meets something else -- someone else, the slide of a silk gown against her bare arms -- her eyes snap open, and she stumbles backward with an embarrassed curse.
"Shit! Sorry, so sorry."
Laurel lifts her gaze, expecting to see the heated glare of whomever she'd been unlucky enough to plow into. What she does not expect is the countess -- The Countess -- blinking back at her with equal amounts of surprise.
With a choked sort of squeak, Laurel drops immediately into her best, lowest curtsy, knees creaking and head bowed so low her mask threatens to slip straight off her nose.
"O-oh, My Lady Countess, forgive me! Please forgive me!"
Her heart hammers in her chest. The Countess! Of all people to drunkenly stumble into! The count would likely have her head for daring lay a hand, however accidental, on his beloved wife. Or perhaps the countess herself would ask him to cut off her wicked, clumsy feet instead as a mercy.
Less likely was the countess's voice -- rich and deep and rolling over her like sweet molasses -- saying softly, "It’s quite alright. Please stand."
Laurel blinks, straightening her spine in fractions, giving ample time should the countess deign to change her mind and command her to sprawl, prostrate in the dirt, at her feet instead. She doesn't. Eventually, Laurel is able to lift her chin and look the -- only slightly -- taller woman in the eye for the first time.
She had known the countess was beautiful, much in the way that people knew the sky was blue, the grass grew green, and the south was a frigid waste, an immutable fact. People spoke often of her features in the market, lauding the beauty of her violet hair, her striking, crimson eyes, her high, royal brow. More so, she knew it to be true by the simple truth that vain Count Lucio would never settle for less. What few memories she has -- a parade, swirling streamers in the air; the profile of a distant woman, nestled like an idol on a float of white roses and purple hyacinth -- are clouded by time and distance. She had pieced her together that first year, vague impressions and gossip and distant glances in the town square where she deigned to appear. Vesuvia's very own princess had crossed her mind very little after that.
This close, close enough to smell her sweet jasmine of her perfume, to count the faint few freckles on her bare shoulders, Countess Nadia is more lovely than Laurel could have ever imagined.
Laurel's gaping leaves her uncharacteristically silent, but the countess seems to recover first. Likely she's used to filling stunned silence.
"How is that you found me here?" she asks, a faint tinge of pink across her nose, though whether it is from embarrassment or anger Laurel cannot gauge.
Laurel glances around, taking in the tall topiaries that surround them. “I-- where is here, exactly?”
Julian & Laurel
Late September, 5 years ago
1.
The first time she arrives at his clinic, Julian doesn’t yet know that he should turn the woman he would come to know as Laurel Lobban away. She comes to his clinic like most regular patients, in a hurried flurry of skirts, eyes bright — not red, thankfully, the sclera a clear, healthy white with irises of sky blue — sharp with an edge of desperation. Perhaps a family member was sick, a spouse, or sister. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had dragged him from his clinic in the misty, early hours of pre-dawn with their pleas.
He lets the woman in — his first mistake — and leads her to the small table in the corner where he offers her a perfunctory cup of poorly brewed coffee or tea, though she doesn’t look to be in any particular need of it. There is a tension to her body, ratcheted tight as a halyard line. If plucked she might sing, high and sweet like the E string of his vielle, but that could also be his third cup of coffee before sunrise talking. From over her nose and mouth, she pulls down her paisley patterned scarf to reveal full but drawn lips, chewed raw and near bleeding. She stretches and bunches the fabric in her hands, twisting it into knots.
“You’re the doctor, then, yes?” she asks, squinting up at him. “Doctor Devorak? The one everyone talks about?”
A grin, black and bitter as the lingering taste of coffee in his throat, spreads his lips thin at that. “Well, now, that depends. What do the people say?”
The woman watches him, eyes canny as a hawk, flitting between his features, sizing him up. “They say you help people, that you don’t overcharge like the hacks in the heart district do.” She sniffs with derision then, nose crinkling up, though whether at the thought of his colleagues uptown or the smell of something in the room, he cannot tell. Astringent probably, he had just cleaned his tools for the day. Often he forgets how strong the smell can be to those far less nose blind than he. She coughs delicately, like she’s trying to suppress a gag. “They say you’re a good man.”
Ah, well, hm. Julian can’t say he’s heard that one before. ‘Foul, beaked harbinger of misery��� yes, ‘heartless bastard’ sure, ‘utter fool’ sometimes, but good man? Compliments were not something many of his patients or their families had on their minds once he was around. Her words settle like a heavy stone in his near empty stomach. This close, with her looking at him just so, her eyes are less so the color of summer. Darker, near navy, paling into a grey to match his own with a flash of almost-barely-there yellow at the center, like a brewing sky at sea -- one set to storm and tear him to pieces any moment, the look of them setting his sailor’s intuition on edge. He ignores them, words and eyes both.
“And are you in need of my help then?” he asks, stepping away to rifle through his curio cabinet, stuffed to bursting with jars of tinctures and salves. “You don’t look beplagued, perhaps some other malady? Allergies? A fungus?”
A loud, nearly surprised, scoff. “I don’t have a fungus,” she asserts with umbrage.
He feels his cheeks heat, grateful that his head is buried in the cabinet and not on view of her no doubt scrutinizing gaze. “Of course not, of course not, so sorry. I didn’t intend any offense miss-- ah, I don’t believe I got your name?”
“Laurel, Laurel Lobban.”
She’s right behind him again. He jumps, knocking the shelves with a wayward elbow as he turns. Her hand is held out to shake, and he takes it with mild surprise. Her grip is firm, no nonsense, but she squeezes a little too hard just before she lets go in a way that lets him know how intentional, how controlled those reads he took of her were. He would see nothing of her that she didn’t want him to, that much he could tell.
“Laurel Lobban,” he repeats, rolling the matching consonants on his tongue. “Laurel, laurus nobilis, lauraceae, like the plant,” he rambles, finishing rather dumbly. She snorts.
“Yes... like the plant. Are you all right, doctor?”
Was he all right? Maybe that third coffee had been a bad idea. “Fine, fine. Though I would be more fine if I knew what I could help you with, Miss Lobban. Hard to diagnose if I don’t know what ails you.”
“I don’t — ” she sighs, frustration warring across her features. “I’m not sick. I’m not here for some tincture. I — I want to work with you.”
He laughs. It was the wrong thing to do, by the telling darkening of her expression, the subtle shift in her jaw as she clearly clenches her teeth. He can’t help it though. It trails off, nervously, his stance shifting from one leg to the other. Whatever you do next, proceed with caution, Ilya.
“Work? Work here?” Nailed it.
“Do you work elsewhere?”
“I — no. This is it,” he replies, gesturing weakly at the single, cramped room, with it’s tiny storage closet and its rickety loft where he keeps his private office which is little more than a second closet. Why would anyone want to work here? With him?
“Then yes, here. With you.”
That he didn’t like.
“And do you ah — do you have any medical expertise then?”
She frowns. There’s a knot of lines between her brows that would be cute, almost endearing, in any other situation than this. Her cheeks flush pink. “Well, no. I mean I’ve read a few books, but… I had hoped you would take me on as an apprentice.”
His mouth falls open, spluttering. He weaves around her so that he’s no longer pinned, like a bug to a board, between her expectant gaze and the cabinet. “Unfortunately Miss Lobban, I’m not equipped to take on apprentices at this time. You see, I’m — well, the fact of the matter is — ”
Stop it. Stop talking.
“There are plenty of other doctors who would take you on, I’m certain.” Who? It doesn’t matter. Doctors who aren’t me. Why would anyone want to learn from a failure who couldn’t even cure his patients, anyway? What could he possibly have to offer an apprentice?
“I don’t want those doctors. They say you’re the best in the city, I want to work with the best.”
The best. Julian bites back another fit of laughter. Grinning — baring his teeth really — instead. “Now now, flattery won’t change my mind.”
She’s followed him again, standing as close behind him as she dares while he flits about the room, restless with nervous energy.
“If I was flattering you, doctor, you would know.”
Had he been this insistent when he’d come to Nazali the first time? Almost certainly, if the stories he’d heard oft repeated are true. How had they put up with him, and not thrown him out on his ear? The simple answer is that they are a much better doctor, a better person, than he. Nazali had discovered the plague, had made the greatest strides in its classification, its treatment, yet. And what had he done with their teachings? Squandered it all. Sat by and watched as patient after patient came to him for help, had plied them with false comforts, and in the end had done nothing, save for ease them into their inevitable deaths. He should tell her that. Should count out his many failures for her like he does for himself every night in place of sheep. Certainly that would frighten her away.
What he says instead is this: “Have you ever watched someone die?”
Her mouth goes slack, obviously taken aback by his question. For a moment he sees the fear flash across her eyes, but quick as it came it's replaced by something else. Something harder. She licks her lips and smiles, lips wobbling at the edges. "Do you ask all the girls that, or am I just special?"
He keeps his gaze hard, until the slight upturn of her lips collapses into a frown.
“Surely that can’t be a prerequisite for the job.”
“On the contrary,” Julian replies, nerves solidifying. “Humor me.”
Laurel’s eyes slide sideways. “No,” she says carefully, chewing over her words. “Though death and I are no strangers.”
Julian takes a deep breath, a brief flare of pain in his chest for having been the cause of the dark shadows that crossed over her features at that admission. He rakes a hand through his curls, shoving them away from his face, where they stay for a moment, before flopping back into his eyes.
“So you have lost someone?” he asks, though it is less question and more statement of fact.
Her gaze flicks back to him, sharp and pointed as the tip of a blade. “Hasn’t everyone in Vesuvia by now?” she asks him cooly.
Julian at least has the grace to look chagrined, feeling the heat of one of his telltale flushes burning under his collar. “I suppose you have a point there.”
“I don’t relish the thought of death, Doctor Devorak, if that’s your concern.” Laurel grips the strap of her bag tightly, staring up at him, imploring. “And I’ve no agenda, I assure you. I simply want to find some way to help.”
It is that moment that the door of the clinic swings open, the sharp RANG-CLANG-CLANG of the bell startling the both of them. A barrel-chested man heaves in the doorway, face shining, slick with sweat as he gasps, hands on his knees.
“Doctor! Doctor please, my husband he — “
Immediately, something shifts in Julian. One moment he is himself, good old Ilya Devorak. The next he is simply Doctor, parts within himself shuttering closed as others open, the whole of him changing as instinct takes over, just as it had every instant before a battle when the quiet set in and he and Nazali knew the first wave of bodies would soon hit; the calm before the storm, captured entirely within himself like a model ship trapped in a bottle.
“On it!” he barks, grabbing his overcoat and mask from their hooks with practiced ease, already making long strides towards the door before Laurel’s voice cuts through the quiet roar of his thoughts.
“Doctor please!” she all but hisses, chasing after him with stubborn steps. “I need — let me do something, anything!”
With a sigh, Julian reaches out and fixes the scarf about her neck back over her nose and mouth before placing his own mask over his face. Safe behind red glass, he cannot see the piercing blue of her eyes anymore, no longer at risk of being swept away by the violent current of her.
He takes her by the arm, and gently but firmly leads her to the door, past the panicked man who dumbly, silently, follows them out onto the street at Julian’s other hand. The rosy tendrils of pre-dawn light are barely making their way across the sky, the cobbles beneath their feet still heavy with morning fog yet to be burned away by the heat of the day. With a deft flick of his wrist, Julian switches the crude sign on the door front from ‘IN’ to ‘OUT’. When he turns back, Laurel still lingers under the halo of lantern light, hem of her skirts dancing around her ankles as she shifts anxiously from foot to foot.
“I — ”
“Go home, Miss Lobban,” he says, voice half muffled, mouth filling with the cloying scents of camphor and dried roses. “Truly, the best you can do for anyone is to not find yourself here again.”
With that Julian turns and follows the snuffling man where he leads, leaving Laurel behind him, disappearing into the pre-dawn gloom.
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COLLEGE TEAM NICKNAMES
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