#full on frothing at the mouth to be able to post this monster in october

[alchemistc]

steddie bb reveal

So fucking thrilled to share that I will be working with @kaspurrcat and sleepykiart for @steddiebang!!

a few sneak peeks under the cut

Eddie cast his magic out into the room. He had only a vague memory of the combination of herbs his mother had once mixed up for the healer in the village, and she'd never learned her letters to write any of her methods down. He'd spent a month pressing herbs and flowers into the bound book his uncle had gifted him, back when he'd still lived in the village, but most of those had been guesses, at best, a catalog of grasping half-memories, rather than any real healing craft. She'd been long gone by then. He wasn't a healer, in any traditional sense, barely more than a hedgewitch with an affinity for protective wards, but the forest had provided before, and had already recognized Gareth as a friend. His nose itched with the scent of marigold, garlic and sage, and he sent a grateful thrum of magic back out as he set to work.

_____

His father had hammered a cross into the ground above his mothers decaying body against her own wishes, and Eddie had done what he could to mitigate that final insult. He'd draped daisy chains over the intersection of the two pieces of wood; he'd planted lavender and peony after the first frost for years, only to have his father rip it free each time they bloomed over her grave; he'd etched runes into the wood, right above where the cross dipped into the earth, until his father had noticed them and scratched them out, too. He'd stopped leaving signs of his visits, then, preferring to sketch the runes into the grass with hands dipped in moonwater, and chanting the rite of passing into the dirt on the nights his father was too steeped in drink to notice Eddie slipping out. He'd buried his uncle in the little copse of trees to the north of the village, hidden away from prying eyes. It was the first bit of warding magic he'd ever managed successfully - four corners of suggestion, a story whispered in cardinal directions; a warning, a reminder, an suddenly remembered appointment, an encouragement to steer clear of that section of the woods in future should anyone be brave or stupid enough to traipse past it. It had kept his uncles resting place safe from the village mob for years, now.