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 Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 12:15 am
Chris, ever the gardener, had decided to take some time and go to Other Ashdown for once to visit the garden. Which what he meant was, he was going to go visit Wis and talk with her for a little. The garden itself he was wary of, but Wis was nice, and had just wanted someone to talk to.
He could continue to do that, really, if she wanted to keep talking. Chris was of no mind to stop.
The path to the garden was always strange though and it was best to let his mind wander when he went, but he felt a little too focused today. A bit too on edge, his mind occupied with other things. Thorne, Coalsmoke, the call from Hyejin that had net him some... really weird texts from her actually (such as asking how her future BIL was doing).
He couldn't really let his mind go enough to get to the garden.
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 12:22 am
It was unfortunate that Chris wasn't necessarily watching where he was going because Mare was. Thorne had come into Other Ashdown on his way back from the gardening shop smelling of dirt and soil. But the petrichor had washed it away. He had made it clear to her to stay either at the Court or at Coalsmoke, and sometimes he scryed into the shadows to see which of these places she was when he wanted to meet.
Today she had been at Coalsmoke, which was lucky, because Thorne hadn't meant to be there at all.
Unfortunately, Mare had an infuriating attitude towards staying put when it was against what she considered her masters safety and best interests (read: most likely her own best interests too), and often idled on ahead while Thorne was accosted by plant otherbeings, today being no different than the rest.
Which was how she ran into Chris before Thorne ever knew he was there.
"Oh," she said, not without casual disdain as she saw the blond, "And who do you suppose you are?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 9:33 am
Chris really should have expected to see someone else in Other Ashdown. For one, he knew that other people could come in and out unexpectedly. He knew that it held many other creatures, it was why he trained in the place. Hell, it was why he was there.
But Chris was distracted and was used to wandering the rainy area alone, where no one bothered him unless he was with another. So when he heard the voice his eyes flicked up in surprise, focused on who was in front of him.
It was a fetch.
There was a number of things that ran through his head. He thought of Shiloh's fetch, of being jeered at by him. He thought about the fetch he had seen catch fire in the hall, burned alive by deciding to kill Melany. He thought about Corr, about wrapping his hands around his throat.
About how Thorne had been forced to kill him. About how he had laid on that floor. About how he had taken and lived Thorne's life for so long.
"Sheild!" He yelled in korean, taking frantic steps back. He was scared of this fetch, scared of what could happen if she came close. "Don't-"
Don't what? He didn't know what to say. His shield was good, but fetches had appeared to be powerful.
elkbones hahaha you thought this'd be a fun meeting
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 11:29 am
Mare blinked at the frantic flailings of the human, completely baffled. The language was familiar but unknown, and she tilled her head as he swapped back to English. She could hear Thorne trying to disentangle himself from a plant otherbeing. But if there was an intent for harm to either master or servant, she would not let it stand, and puffed up like a peacock who had lost all of its feathers.
Thorne had let her keep the scarf though, and it was fluffy and nearly covered her mouth, the bulky cable-knit material covering her head from the rain like a hood.
"Oh," she said indignantly, "what are you doing there, getting so riled up for? All I asked for was a name and you had to go shouting at me as though I were some monstrosity. Do I have scales? Am I breathing fire? I was asking you a question, little mortal, as any self-respecting woman would before engaging further!"
She rattled in a breath and whuffled.
"And anyways," she added, "I would not take you even if you begged me. I am respectable and your flesh is unappealing. Do you suppose every fetch might come groveling for a chance to take you simply because you breathe, or has your head filled with so much pride you can't see straight?"
At this rate, Mare was going to talk his ear off.
"A lady has standards," Mare finished in a fit. "And you, as a poor example of a gentleman, shall acknowledge them and tell me your name!"
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 11:40 am
With the shield (and some distance) between them, Chris felt a little better about the whole... well. Literally everything. It helped a great deal that the fetch wasn't coming after him, but instead letting him keep a distance. Maybe this would be... okay. Hopefully.
Well, considering she was simply just yelling at him for manners, it would probably be okay.
"I'm-" There was a lot of words going on and Chris didn't know when or even how to interject. Whoever this was, she was certainly someone who liked to talk a great deal and Chris waited her out.
"I'm Chris," He finally said, once he was almost certain she was done talking or at least pausing to take a breath. "I'm sorry I've just. Had a bad experience. With you all."
That shield was still up though and probably wasn't coming down for the foreseeable future, seeing how Chris was still incredibly rattled. He eyed the fetch closer, his eyes falling upon the scarf. It looked strangely familiar, but he couldn't really place it.
"I'm sorry," He repeated again and then said, "Do you have a name my um. Lady?"
She talked in quite an old style and he really just wanted to appease her enough to get away. Just because she had said she wouldn't take him (which was a blessing, really) didn't mean she wouldn't do something else.
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 12:23 pm
"Oh, and that gives you the right to treat us all so unkindly?" Mare responded, her voice rattling and high. She exhaled, a rattling sound through her rotted mouth, and made that similar whuffling noise.
The name was taken in stride, a pleased little puff of air flaring from her nostrils and clouding the air in front of her.
"There now," she said, "That was not at all hard was it, Sir Chris? It would be more proper to call one by ones last name, but these are strange times and I suppose we must all make do with what we are given and the extent to which one can give. I have had many names, but for now I am Mare."
She gave an exhausted sigh, as though Chris tired her out. Or maybe it was simply herself. She did talk a lot for a rotting corpse.
"I serve at the whim of my Lord Alexander," she said, "I am here for him and him only. If you are a threat, I will be forced to engage. But you seem quite harmless yourself, if you are to choose a shield before a sword. What is your purpose here, Sir Chris? Am I to trust you not to attack my lord?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 1:14 pm
"No," Chris said, feeling a little guilty. She hadn't actually done anything and as far as Chris could tell, didn't intend to. "I apologize, I only meant to explain my behavior."
She was actually kind of nice, now that she wasn't actively freaking Chris out.
"My last name is Watts," Chris said, as something of a peace offering. Sir Chris sounded strange anyways, although the effect might have been magnified by it coming from Mare. He wasn't sure and honestly he just wanted to leave.
"No!" Chris said, slightly horrified. "No, I don't wish harm on your lord or anyone really. I came to visit a friend in the garden, I just got lost along the way." He looked around briefly, wondering where exactly he was. "Can I trust your Lord Alexander to not attack me as well, Lady Mare?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 2:44 pm
"Oh, if that is the case, your apology is accepted with gratitude," Mare said agreeably, "And I rescind any rude comments I must have made in my haste. You seem a fair bit more tame than Lord Alexander's other - peons."
Her eyes flattened in distaste as she relived a particularly unhappy memory.
"Sir Watts," she said with a flicker of prideful pleasure, "It is a great thing to make your acquaintance, in so long as you continue to provide no outward threat to my master. Though I do not see how you can get so lost here, if you came to visit a friend whom you seem to be acquainted with already. Have you made a wrong turn?" She whuffled softly. "The Lord Alexander does like gardening and smells very like you at times. Soil and petrichor, but oh, I suppose that does suit him. He is very regal when he pleases to be though, I assure you."
She ho-hummed thoughtfully.
"My Lord Alexander will only harm those that wish harm upon his own people of importance," She said mildly. "But he a gentleman and he will not lift a hand unless it is requested of him by insult or injury. You humans have given him a strange sense of honor, which I do not necessarily agree with but follow all the same, for I do so think he is very talented and will be very good for his Court. He believes that peace can be achieved through conversation before conflict."
She hummed softly.
"What a silly notion though, for humans to believe they can escape a cycle that has been here since the existence of civilization," she said. "But if it is his whim, I will follow it."
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 3:00 pm
"Thank.. you," Chris said slowly, in mild confusion. "Peons?" He questioned, wondering what she meant. Did Chris count as one? Whoever this guy was, he was apparently spoke highly of by Mare.
"It's the garden itself," Chris said as explanation, "It doesn't have a clear path to it, I've found. It lets it guide itself to me - my friend, she only resides in the garden. She has no control over it. It's just how things are, in this place." He gave her a soft smile at her description of her lord. "He sounds nice, if he likes gardening. Have no worries, with a name like Lord Alexander, I can only assume he's regal."
Speaking of, the name Alexander was vaguely familiar. He wasn't sure where he had heard it - was it one of his previous students? But that didn't sound right, they weren't involved with Ashdown. Chris would have probably known by now if another one was.
"He sounds like a wonderful Lord," Chris said quietly, in consideration. "Peace through conversation is something I want to achieve myself. I'm glad he's part of the court myself then, if that's what he wants. I'm scared that too much fighting will happen."
Chris' eyes flicked at her in surprise at her mention at the cycle. "What do you mean? Is he part of the cycle as well?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 3:48 pm
"Oh, not you," Mare said dismissively, "But those that are not fit to be at court in the least. At least you have the proper attitude of a gentleman in learning to lower your shield and give your name without spitting acid over it."
She gave another ho-hum, delicate, picking at one of the tails of her scarf.
"I see," she said, "I have never been to it. But I confess myself I do not have an interest in gardening unless it is to please my Lord Alexander, but because I am his will here in this edge of the world, I am limited to helping appease the sentient plants he has himself grown a reputation around. And he is very regal."
She said this as though to emphasize the thesis of her entire existence, the reason why she lived. Her eyes hardened glacially behind her hollowed out rot, and she made a distinct noise in the back of her throat.
"A wonderful lord indeed, one fit for the respect of his peers," Mare said proudly. "But peace cannot always be the tool through which victory, even peace itself is gained, you see. Humans were built for war. Monsters were made by war and for every side there is a villain. We must all accept that we are evil in someones eyes."
Mare blinked at him, owlishly. "Or so my master has said, when I have brought it up." She made a distinctive noise in her throat and smiled - if what a fetch could do with their mouth could be considered smiling. "We are all connected," she only said. "You ask silly questions, little mortal."
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 4:46 pm
"Oh," Chris said a little dumbly. "Well, thank you for thinking so highly of me. I didn't realize giving my name was so important." Really, the conversation was getting weirder and weirder. He let his shield fully drop, knowing well and good that Mare wasn't going to actually do anything at this point. She was chatty, but she wasn't doing anything.
"Sentient plants?" Chris questioned, giving a chuckle. "I should like to see those, I've only found myself conversing with plant spirits. Or at least, only two so far. My friend in the garden and Heddy, who I summon back home. I think it's nice you garden for your Lord though."
He very carefully did not touch upon the other topic - he did not want to actually think about it nor question it.
"That's rather poetic - he has a way with words, your Lord," Chris said, thinking upon what he had said. It was true, in a way, if somewhat sad. He frowned slightly at mare but simply said, "If you say so." It was obvious she didn't know anymore about the cycle than he did.
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 5:12 pm
The problem with plant-things was that Thorne could not ignore them. The problem with Mare was that she could.
"Mare," Thorne said, "I think I've - "
And looked up.
Mare was gone.
***
Meanwhile, Mare was having a very pleasant conversation, no knives included. She designated Chris with a pleasant smile, the sort of courtly one that was polite enough to slice through butter like a hot knife.
"Yes, they very much like to have long conversations, but unfortunately I do not speak plant and they do not speak English, French, German, or Spanish, and it is unfortunate because I myself find that language is fascinating, but when I cannot communicate at all it causes rather a stir." She flicked one hand and looked around. "You seem very well acquainted with plants, though a commodity like you should not simply spend time with one sort of sentient creature. You are very young after all, it seems, but age is fleeting and you had best spend more time with your own social circles if you are intent on marrying a respectable young woman. Or man."
She tilted her head. Ho-hummed. Considered.
"It was not at all proper on my time, for reasons I cannot understand and continue to feel are inadequate in court, but if that is how you feel towards any one person than it must be a respectable union until such time comes that you no longer feel that such a bond." There was barely a breath before Mare barreled onward. "My Lord Alexander seems more preferable to men, if I were any judge of the matter, for he gets this lovely spark in his eye whenever he has come from an interaction with one which remains nameless to me - a state I find entirely unfair for how am I meant to help him in his attempt at courtship if he is to hole it all up in himself, he is fair match you know and to dismiss himself is a criminal act - I am not at all saying that you yourself are inadequate because you seem to have the physical qualities which one might find respectable for offspring or the marriage bed - only that my Lord Alexa - "
Mare made a loud hrk noise as fingers wrapped around the back of her scarf and tugged, quelling her self-contained ramble.
"Mare," Thorne said, panting slightly from the sprint he'd gone into in an attempt to find her before she somehow raised the dead or woke the Enemy, or god forbid started going on about how to be appropriately qualified to marry. "What in god's name are you doing?"
"Asserting your respectable status as a candidate for marriage, which anyone would be pleased to arrange themselves in line with," Mare said loyally, "Do you not agree, Sir Watts, with my Lord Alexander's respectable qualities in a marital union, given that now you may see him in person and - "
Thorne, now recognizing Chris, made such a strangled noise that it could have raised the dead or woke the Enemy, because of all the ways he'd planned to introduce Mare to Chris, discussing his candidacy as a husband was not the way to go.
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 5:39 pm
What Chris was learning very, very quickly was that Mare enjoyed her words. She enjoyed them quite a bit, to the point where Chris was barely sure she was breathing, much less was he able to get much of anything in conversation. His ability to follow was only from years of living with Hyejin, who was similar in her way of verbally spamming Chris when she was onto a topic she enjoyed, which also led to him being able to find footing.
"That's a great many languages to speak, I only speak two myself. Or well, three I guess if plant counts? Is plant just a general language or is there dialects? Because if so then I speak a great deal more," Chris found himself interjecting when he had time. "My friend, he can speak a great deal. He wants me to teach him Korean, one of my languages, which I'm thinking about. I should want to but it's fun to tease him in korean, since he doesn't understand. He thinks I'm insulting him but really I'm complimenting his hair."
He gave her a bit of a crooked smile, clearly amused but still a little uncomfortable. He wasn't sure if the feeling would ever go away.
"I- um," Chris spluttered, unsure how to react to the talk of marriage. He barely felt like he had a handle on his life, much less marrying anyone, or even thinking of dating really. Not to mention all the issues with dating in the first place when he was part of Ashdown and his looks and just, everything at that point really.
"I'm sure the man is nice-" Chris said, carefully interjecting, unsure what to really say. His face was flushed bright red at her compliment and with the talk of kids and the talk of well. It was a blessing she was cut off, although Chris was on the defensive immediately.
He looked up in surprise at Thorne, then back to Mare, his mind slowly turning the pieces as Mare finally connected them for him.
Chris knew the name Alexander because it was Thorne.
"Lady Mare, I must agree, Lord Alexander does indeed have desirable qualities when it comes to marriage," Chris said with a growing smirk. He'd jump on Thorne for not telling him anything about the Lord stuff in a few minutes - for now, he was getting his comeback and it was in the form of embarrassing while he could.
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 6:44 pm
Mare could have gone on, and quite possibly she would have, if not for Thorne's interference. Now she preened, like a songbird on her favorite tree being granted an audience by the king. If Thorne was displeased at all, she dutifully ignored it.
"Oh yes," Mare said agreeably to Chris, "the most desirable qualities a man can possess, in fact. While it has always been a terrible choice to put all the importance of a marriage on the continuation of a line of descent, providing children is a most desirable thing, and for that the qualities must be exceptional, and are thus found soundly in my Lord Alexander." She probably didn't breathe between her words. It was utterly impossible to discern how she was actually alive and not choking on them. "And even so, should the occasion rise where he is not to marry for children, wherein it is a union between husbands rather than husband and wife, it is still assumed that there must be a respectable body for the marriage bed, which - "
Thorne actually put his hand over Mare's mouth at that point, and the fetch continued to talk awhile longer before spiraling off with a little whuffle of indignation.
"Please don't encourage her to call me that even more," Thorne said pleadingly to Chris, "the fact you even met her before I was able to somehow break this to you makes it all the worse."
He let Mare go. She whuffled again, straightened herself, and slid lady-like into a position of politeness.
"I was not aware you were already acquainted with my master," she said to Chris. "Though then you must already have seen in him the qualities I am only here to reaffirm."
"Mare, I thought we had this discussion," Thorne said, even more desperately.
She made another whuffling noise.
"We did indeed have a discussion," she said, "But if Sir Watts accepts that you are in fact a desirable candidate for marriage, than surely you cannot continue to pine listlessly as you do and find yourself someone who reciprocates, or at least make your affections known so that they do not get stomped all over by the arrival of another man or woman."
"I have already made my affections known," Thorne said arguably, flushed, and continued with more heat, "But not in the way that you are implying, which might be considered inopportune and rude. Should a man choose to be patient, rather than to impose his feelings on someone with which that bond might be felt only platonic? I am content to let myself be single, and let my affections be known in a way that can continue without risk of hurting any party rather than stab it with a knife." Sometimes it was easier to play Mare's game than to fight it.
Mare blinked. "Oh," she said. "This conversation."
Thorne was viciously embarrassed, his face warm and red, only saved a little by the darkness of his skin.
"Yes," he said, and Mare sighed.
"But Sir Watts says you are desirable, so why wait, unless it is that you are assured in yourself that you are in fact romantically inclined - and anyways, it seems as though there is already interest, if Sir Watts is agreeable to your qualifications and thus willing to - "
Thorne put his head in his hands.
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 7:12 pm
Even with Thorne's arrival, and man did it feel strange to have been talking about him without actually knowing he was talking about him, Mare seemed to have no inclination to stop talking at all. In fact, she seemed inclined to talk more about Thorne with his arrival, which was entertaining in and of itself.
In fact, Mare was doing all the work for him and Chris just sat back and gave Thorne a growing smirk, more amused by the second.
"Oh, no, I think Lady Mare has some absolutely wonderful things to share," Chris said, his voice on the edge of amused and very, very irritated. "She's given me wonderful insights on how your body is respectable for a marriage bed which, having seen it myself, I must have to agree."
Chris only nodded to Mare, his grin absolutely wicked. "I admit that I was a little thrown by his name, but yes I have indeed met him before. And yes, he does have wonderful qualities."
Really, Chris didn't even have to say that. Mare was doing all the talking for him and it was like watching a beautifully orchestrated train wreck. One that Chris especially had set off in motion. It almost made him less angry about not knowing this. Almost.
"Lady Mare," Chris said, cutting in smoothly. As amusing as it was to listen to this, he figured he might release Thorne from this hell. "While this conversation is fascinating and giving me wonderful insights to Th- Lord Alexander's dating life or lack thereof, I must say that I do have some questions to ask him."
He turned a rather pointed gaze on Thorne, almost dangerous in it's frustration. "Many, many questions to ask him."
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