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Entry tags:
i want fangs (open)
WHO: Emilia di Carlo + whoever would like to join her.
WHEN: Throughout the month of March.
WHERE: The village of Ke-Waihu.
WHAT: Arrival, settling in, wolves, and horrors.
WARNINGS: Will update this as needed. As a note: My starters are in prose but I love prose and brackets equally. Go with your preference if you have one, and I will gladly match.
Emilia di Carlo does not arrive to the village of Ke-Waihu quietly.
For a near two decades — the only two decades an ancient curse allows her to remember — she was the dutiful and responsible daughter. The one who obeyed her family's rules and erred on the side of abundant caution. She stayed to the light and did all things a good witch must. She hid herself and contained her magic. When the hateful brothers roamed the streets in search of those with devilry in their souls to burn them at their pyres, she bit her tongue and swallowed the resentment. Closed her windows and kept her twin close at the bosom. Served food at the monastery the next day, for who would be suspicious of the one who nurtures?
It did not keep them safe.
Now she cares little to make herself palatable, to do as she is told even as a deep sense of responsibility lingers. Tension lines her jaw as she is stripped of her bearings, furious in her dignity. Suspicion crowds the sharp of her gaze when presented with a brew, one her Nonna Maria would tell her under no circumstances to drink. Won't you, she is asked, and she decides that she will not. No one can make her, not even the merchant's liaison Taksui, he with the vicious eyes. She is vicious, too, and has learned to bide her time.
A villager woman, her eyes kind but distant, fails to understand Emilia's unwillingness. Shows Emilia the marks of her own curses, as though they are gifts upon the skin. She is willing, even, to take a fourth curse upon herself should Emilia deny them. Whispers to her of the other villages, including one where all curses can be broken. Emilia, already cursed, doesn't readily believe. Neither does she ignore.
Theirs is a precarious situation. Under no circumstances are they to blow their cover, she knows. But there are certain concessions she is unwilling to make, and certain answers that will not be withheld from her. To demand this of her without question is not reasonable, no matter how desperate she is. She knows this, too.
And so they are given days. Days to think it over, days to speak with the villagers, days to decide. The more she learns, the less she is assured, but so is she reminded of her dwindling options, too. One curse atop another. One mission that blinds her to all else.
She drinks the brew.
The frustration, the wrongness of it — the anger — sits in the space between her ribs, and grows. ➥
WHEN: Throughout the month of March.
WHERE: The village of Ke-Waihu.
WHAT: Arrival, settling in, wolves, and horrors.
WARNINGS: Will update this as needed. As a note: My starters are in prose but I love prose and brackets equally. Go with your preference if you have one, and I will gladly match.
Emilia di Carlo does not arrive to the village of Ke-Waihu quietly.
For a near two decades — the only two decades an ancient curse allows her to remember — she was the dutiful and responsible daughter. The one who obeyed her family's rules and erred on the side of abundant caution. She stayed to the light and did all things a good witch must. She hid herself and contained her magic. When the hateful brothers roamed the streets in search of those with devilry in their souls to burn them at their pyres, she bit her tongue and swallowed the resentment. Closed her windows and kept her twin close at the bosom. Served food at the monastery the next day, for who would be suspicious of the one who nurtures?
It did not keep them safe.
Now she cares little to make herself palatable, to do as she is told even as a deep sense of responsibility lingers. Tension lines her jaw as she is stripped of her bearings, furious in her dignity. Suspicion crowds the sharp of her gaze when presented with a brew, one her Nonna Maria would tell her under no circumstances to drink. Won't you, she is asked, and she decides that she will not. No one can make her, not even the merchant's liaison Taksui, he with the vicious eyes. She is vicious, too, and has learned to bide her time.
A villager woman, her eyes kind but distant, fails to understand Emilia's unwillingness. Shows Emilia the marks of her own curses, as though they are gifts upon the skin. She is willing, even, to take a fourth curse upon herself should Emilia deny them. Whispers to her of the other villages, including one where all curses can be broken. Emilia, already cursed, doesn't readily believe. Neither does she ignore.
Theirs is a precarious situation. Under no circumstances are they to blow their cover, she knows. But there are certain concessions she is unwilling to make, and certain answers that will not be withheld from her. To demand this of her without question is not reasonable, no matter how desperate she is. She knows this, too.
And so they are given days. Days to think it over, days to speak with the villagers, days to decide. The more she learns, the less she is assured, but so is she reminded of her dwindling options, too. One curse atop another. One mission that blinds her to all else.
She drinks the brew.
The frustration, the wrongness of it — the anger — sits in the space between her ribs, and grows. ➥
CURSES FOR ONE, CURSES FOR ALL, open.
An orchard, too.
The Seven Circles are cold and unforgiving. Little grows — there's only winter as far as the eye can see. No flower is found without ice to coat its petals, and the sky knows twilight alone. In her quest to avenge her sister, she'd nearly forgotten that she'd once wanted this, and only this: a garden to grow food, to grow it under Palermo's blistering sun, and people she could feed.
There hasn't been room in her heart for this, for anything other than her mission. How angry she is, always, whether she learns to conceal it or not. But late afternoon finds Emilia lowering down to her knees before the orchids. One in particular struggles to thrive, and she cups it in both her hands. No spell needed, simply a mystical nudge to facilitate airflow at the roots.
It blooms once more.
She walks along the green later in the evening, noting what patches of land close by need most tending to. When the sun sets, she sits by the river and stares at her hands, hands that have drawn blood more than magic as of late. She focuses inward, attempting to tap into the source of that magic, one she'd never known existed. A seemingly unending well of power. She can only access a sliver of it, the rest of it locked and out of reach, and it manifests in five small glowing orbs of starlight hovering above her palms.
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"I've been trying to do that," he breathes with no small amount of envy and turns toward the garden with an eye on the rest of the wilted blooms. "But at the most, I think I've only strengthened them a bit and learned what they're lacking."
Eleven gives the flower a smile. "It's beautiful."
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Emilia means to ask, but perhaps not right away.
"Thank you. Would you like to help? I've some pruning left to do."
Two pairs of hands are usually better than one.
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"I'd be happy to. I was thinking I'd try to absolve my curse by growing things. I've come to enjoy it a lot since coming to this world."
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A spoiled child, a man of privilege, who was not held accountable for those that he hurt. The thought leaves her furious, beyond her anger at being pressured to drink that brew upon their arrival in the first place.
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"We can work together, then," he says brightly. "Mine is similar. Believing labor to be beneath him after his family was left penniless, a nobleman let his family starve to death."
It's a terrible story of course, but so have most things been, and this at least, he feels rather certain he can do something about. Eleven's eyes stray beyond the garden patch to the others he knows are scattered about the village.
"We might really be able to help."
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"I believe we might be able to, as well. If I'm honest with you, this is more familiar to me than the role I was assigned in Taravast. My family and I, our work has always started in the kitchen, to feed others."
Not to pose as some noblewoman in search of a wealthy husband.
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"You must be a good cook," he says with a grin, then shrugs. "I grew up in a farming village. Between the two of us, surely we could help." After spending too long feeling utterly useless at best and working against himself at worst, the prospect is greatly appealing.
"And if I could learn to heal plants the way you did, then we could really make a difference to this place."
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She is not as well-versed in magic as she once thought. Her family made sure she learned only what they meant for her to, a betrayal that still carves deep. Eleven is not from her world, besides. Like Lily, his magic must be different.
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WELL, WELL, WELL, open.
Now Grace Three is a steady presence in her life, sometimes choosing to break away from Diego and the other Graces to wander close to her assigned house instead. She's there when Emilia wanders the village and there when lavish processions become a deadly hunt. Her coat is silver-white and her eyes a burnish gold that reminds her of a lover she never wished to love.
Grace Three is with her when the forests come alive, the trace of haunted things in every corner one chooses to look. Emilia isn't surprised that false weddings involving the commemoration of a fox bride took a turn for the worse, nor that the reason for hosting them is tied to something much more insidious. No, she's more curious about what comes after.
The villagers afraid and rumblings of dark waters returned. Worries over drying wells and tributes for a volcano(?).
Emilia is approaching one of the dried wells, her inquisitive nature getting the best of her, when footfalls leave Grace Three bearing her teeth. She herself turns toward the source of the noise, prepared to do the same.
I hope this is okay..................
Midday is slate and penury, the rush of nearly bare feet, of young girls swaying young siblings in slow drag to the markets, for they cannot find them care, and the wares that burden their slim-branched arms won't keep. He finds Emilia, a fresh face among their swarthy pallor, invigorated by the lack of common, menial work, her gaze sharpened on the well's keep — and Lan Wangji might well hasten his step, to join her, stranded at the rim of the wet mouth, to stare into waters so distant and deep, they've clouded.
"Do not fall in," he murmurs down, caution like stale cobwebs — less condescension than mere habit. Nothing to see here, carry on, but in the white tinny roundness of boisterous voices, he hears what they will not speak: Nothing to see here, for we cover our dead.
"They claim waters dark." Silence, sprawling. "And droughts, resurging."
perfect
If anything here does.
"They claim the dark waters, too, are a return."
Emilia heard it said by a farmer whose attempt to mask his fear proved futile. But good, she thinks. They've heard the same rumblings, if nothing else. "You remember our first meeting? The temple and the tomb."
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There is an edge to this part, as seldom as he is yet allowed to assume it: the cultivating investigator must ever be a ferocious creature, removed from the pool of sympathies. A weapon of reason alone. He moves himself, clumsily, to examine every instance of ill-gained learning they have secured throughout their travels, to recall — wet. Lake water of Sa-Hareth. Drenched things. The drip of the Stairs of Sighs. The seas of Ellethia.
Ever, they appear to drown. He anticipates her point before it is served to him, fresh flesh before the huntsman:
"Waters and wasteland." A pause, then cautiously, "You suspect connection to the dead."
And is she to blame in this? Wherever they set step, corpses claw their way up from brittle earth and seek out their ankles, to drag them down and in and tarnish them with the hardships of this world. They are pursued by wicked, bestial things that have long laid root where they now only visit — and their stalks grow, and the branches sing their evil, riotous.
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Tar on Lan Wangji's fingertips, hers.
Bonnaccorso sacrificed both his neighbors and his people to protect Taravast from that which threatened its gates. And still, the city was not spared. That same tar dripped from the icy walls of the Bessis tower during their fete.
"One of the villagers mentioned the liquid left at the bottom of the dried well — it looked like tar."
Emilia doubts she is the only one entertaining the suspicion. It does remain a suspicion, no matter how obvious a connection may seem to her at first glance. She's learned, learned brutally at that, the consequence of jumping to conclusions.
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Yet here, their gaze cautious over the well's rim, they see only the natural impurities of water unfiltered, of greyed sediment and white debris. No serpentine, wispy trace of weighted dark. No wet converted.
Shame of your flesh, to not attempt study. Lan Wangji, why do you yet own hands? They feel out the mouth of the well, deepen their hold. Then, with a tired sweep of motion, he makes for the pail, calling it close on its string, until he brokers purchase of the chain, trying it for security. For what weight — his weight — it might yet carry.
"You need not come." This, as he starts to bridge the distance, leg ungainly when he swings it over the stone collar, seeking a step on the thrashing bucket. It may well be that he exceeds the limit of what the well can accept as its pail's burden. "Only keep the watch."
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She thinks that's what stings the most, in retrospect.
"No caution for you?"
It isn't the first time she notices that he is very much about others doing what he says, and not as he would do himself. She's no great desire to be the pail's burden in Lan Wangji's stead, mind.
She's only curious what changed his mind, if it even was changed.
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Let it be him, by right, by training. Inconvenience suits the exorcist, the cultivator trained, and he is no different in this than his lesser in rank or his forefathers. Arrogance dresses the monster.
Humility banishes him into slick, crawling depths. Delight swells in him, anticipation. He chokes both down.
Tattered, the pail grunts and creaks on a chain heaving with weight inconceivable. He tips it, each way, until he has positioned one foot in the pail, the other coiled around the steel fetters, hands adrift then striking purchase. A trickled negotiation, teasing. He waits, until he is a speck of dust on metal hoops, a pale coagulation of tender obstacles in light's path — incorporated in landscape, ill breathing.
Wet waits like a hungered belly below. He scents it. Then carefully behind him, "Cast me down."
One must control the chain, and broker the watch and offer rescue should safety atrophy into danger. "Should ill strike, I shall call."
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WILDCARD.
MID-March
With so much on his mind lately — the least of which is a curse that seems to have manifested in some truly annoying cuts on his now-wrapped hands — it seems like a good time to get one thing cleared up. He stops walking as soon as she's near, stepping slightly in front of her. They both have very reasonable explanations to why he'd be in this area of the village, but that doesn't keep him from calling her out like he'd just caught her doing something a lot worse than visiting a few friends.
(There are some things he probably wouldn't get away with so easily if he looked his age, but he'll flat out refute it if anyone asks.) ]
You should be careful. They'll forget what family you said you belonged to.
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( Steel undercuts the composure with which she answers him, no longer so easily rankled as she once was, but still firmly disinviting the reprimand with which he arrives. Lan Wangji attempted something similar, earlier at the well. Men often think it their place to provide counsel.
Indeed, wherever would she be without it? )
Then they'd forget with ease, and would be more their problem than mine.
( She's done nothing to raise suspicion. Nothing that he himself is not doing right this minute, anyhow. )
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After a moment, he slowly seems to let go of that thread. It doesn't benefit him to offend her. Emilia is important to Wrath, and friendly with his sister, so he could try to soften his edges while he figures out what he's missing. ]
That wouldn't be unheard of. [ They're everyone's problem. He takes one more glance around and exhales. ] Am I interrupting?
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( But neither does she offer up the results of the investigation she was undertaking. Five doesn't bring out her generosity, to say the least, but neither does she resort to her own sharpness. She would rather he wear his unkindness on his sleeve, than to pretend to be something he isn't.
Let his bitterness swirl with hers. Let them see how it tastes. )
Did you need something?
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Then again, it seems unlikely that she would be conspiring behind his back unless she had a motive, and he doubts Wrath would deceive him like that. But there's a lot he doesn't know about her for how much time she spends with his family. ]
I might. [ He studies her for a moment. ] How are my siblings?
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( It's that or this is a trick question. She thinks of fishing when she thinks of Five. The sharpness of a hook, and the willingness of a bait.
She and Allison have spoken of the termites in her housing. Have spoken a great deal of things, in fact. There's always Diego and his wolves. Three of them, and more missing. He would do anything to find them, she is certain. To protect what he has. They have that in common: it's why she knows to guard herself. )
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That's nothing Emilia needs to concern herself with, but it bothers him that she'd dodge an innocent question. ]
Not as much as I should. I thought I'd ask a friend of the family. [ He crosses his arms, still thinking about earlier. ] It looked like you wanted to say something on the way over here.
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