#Christmas Wreath diamond painting
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Celebrating Christmas with Diamond Art Painting kits
The holiday season is a time for joy, warmth, and a little bit of magic. What better way to enjoy this time of year than through painting with diamond kits? In this post, we will explore the magical world of diamond painting kits for the holiday season. We’ll take a look at some of the most popular paint with diamonds of the season, including Polar Bears with Santa Claus, Christmas Wreaths, and Reindeer Cake.
Starting with the magical scene where Santa Claus has a good time with two adorable polar bears in the snow. This magical scene is brought to life in the Polar Bears And Santa Clause diamond painting kit. Each sparkling diamond brings a sparkle to Santa’s eye and a gleam to the polar bear’s fur, making this a beautiful addition to your holiday decorations.
The Christmas Wreath Diamond Painting Kit is the perfect way to decorate your home for the holiday season. The Christmas wreath is a symbol of the warm and welcoming spirit of the season. As you carefully place each diamond on the wreath, you will be able to recreate the beautiful colors of the Christmas branches, the glitter of the Christmas ornaments, and the soft light of the twinkling Christmas lights. Craft your very own Christmas wreath masterpiece with this kit.
Without a doubt, no holiday party is complete without a cake, and the reindeer cake diamond painting kit is the perfect way to show your appreciation for Santa's faithful reindeer. This delicious treat is painted with artistic precision, and each diamond reflects the delicate details of the cake. The cake is decorated with cute reindeer figures and festive decorations. The Reindeer Cake Diamond Painting Kit is the perfect combination of artistic expression and delicious holiday desserts.
Finally, 5D Diamond painting during the holidays is the perfect way to add a bit of magic and fun to your holiday plans. Whether you're charmed by Santa and the polar bears, admiring the classic beauty of a wreath, or falling in love with a cake made from a reindeer, diamond painting is a great way to get into the holiday spirit one sparkly piece at a time.
#Riendeer Cake diamond painting#Polar Bears And Santa Claus diamond painting#Christmas Wreath diamond painting#5D diamond painting
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US Vogue December 1954 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Sequined golden lace medallion painted on a clear nylon stocking. These, by Bryans. Sleek satin opera pump by Delman. Bracelet (a Christmas wreath of pearls, diamonds and emeralds), and the moon and star sparkle of the ring: S. G. Barnett.
Médaillon doré pailleté en dentelle peint sur un bas de nylon clair. Ceux-ci, par Bryans. Escarpin opéra en satin élégant par Delman. Bracelet (une couronne de Noël de perles, de diamants et d'émeraudes), et l'éclat de la lune et de l'étoile de la bague : S. G. Barnett.
Photo Horst P. Horst
vogue archive
#us vogue#december 1954#fashion50s#spring/summer#printemps/été#1955#bryans#nylon stockings#bas nylon#delman#opera pump#escarpin en satin#s.g.barnett#horst p. horst
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Craft Goals for 2023
Upcoming Craft Goals for 2023:
January: Finish the Big Boba Fett Cross Stitch and get it framed. Hope to have the stitching done by the end of January. Framing will take longer since I still have to find a good frame. (I’ve found some good frames for other projects at Goodwill, still looking for the right one for this one).
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086X1PP7W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1
February: Gingerbread Tree Skirt. This is a pattern from the Crochet Crowd and Yarnspirations, and the yarn has already been purchased. The hope is to have a full-sized Christmas tree next year, so this is the skirt that will be used for it.
https://thecrochetcrowd.com/gingerbread-afghan-tree-skirt-pattern/
(I want to do it in these colors, I think it will go well with my living room. The pattern also allows one to make a round blanket, so if I like it I may make one for the back of the couch).
March: I bought all the supplies, um, before the pandemic to make a spring wreath and I never even unpacked the box. I want to actually do it.
https://www.bhg.com/holidays/easter/crafts/make-a-tulip-wreath/
I picked different colors when the silk flowers were on sale, but hell if I remember which I chose, so I guess I have a surprise in April. It was pastel but not pink.
April: I found some sock yarn I still haven’t used so this spring I want to knit a pair of socks for me. I also expect to be doing some yard work so I’m not planning anything bigger than that. Hopefully I will find my sock needles by April. They are . . . somewhere.
May: I bought an embroidery kit at ALDI sometime during the pandemic and I want to actually start using it. I already know how to cross stitch but other than a kit I never finished sometime in the 2000′s the last time I learned to do embroidery was in sixth grade home economics class. Eventually I want to put together enough supplies to cross stitch and embroider regularly. Friends IRL, expect thready gifts in the future.
https://www.hinkler.com.au/create-your-own-embroidery-box-set
June: Another kit I purchased years ago and never used is the Star Wars Crochet Kit. I definitely want to use this (and if I like it, there is now a Mandalorian kit).
https://www.amazon.com/Star-Crochet-Editors-Thunder-Press/dp/1645176010/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=star+wars+crochet+kit&qid=1672609548&sprefix=star+wars+crochet%2Caps%2C117&sr=8-4
July: July is going to inevitably be hot, so it may be time to break out the rock painting kit I bought and stop trying to work with textiles. Yes, I’ve been buying kits because I haven’t had the brain space to buy supplies and everything is ready when I am. I also purchased this one from ALDI (this year. I was about to buy a second identical embroidery kit and realized I already had one at home). I have no idea what I will do with them, but we’ll see if I like it.
https://www.amazon.com/Metallic-Rock-Painting-Tuck-Box/dp/1488936358/ref=asc_df_1488936358/?tag=&linkCode=df0&hvadid=393872337347&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17191787448781098786&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9005930&hvtargid=pla-756203764489&ref=&adgrpid=78517715221&th=1
August: I have a knock off Diamond Dots kit and August seems like a good month to try that. It’s supposed to be similar to cross stitch, but again, no textiles in the heat. If I like it, I already have a few more kits that I bought on sale/on a whim/for free shipping on amazon. Those can be considered in 2024.
https://www.hinkler.com.au/crystal-creations-proud-peacock
September-December: When fall comes Christmas is just around the corner. I want to keep some time available to start doing holiday gifts, but I hope to do some craft painting. I’ve got quite a few ceramic ornaments to paint that I’ve collected over the years, so I can work on those. I also used to make marbled glass ornaments and fall is a good time to do that because they can take weeks to dry but only need to be turned 1-2 times a day so it’s good to make a bunch at once. Also I will be doing Inktober again, so that covers October.
https://www.marthastewart.com/274467/christmas-ornament-projects?slide=f755a21b-ca8d-4267-91c5-c207114819cc#f755a21b-ca8d-4267-91c5-c207114819cc
https://www.favecrafts.com/Ornaments/Marbelous-Ornaments
I have a few orphan projects I may do when I have time (like that Mandala blanket) and I know I won’t make all of these goals. And I’m sure holiday gifts will totally derail some. But these are the fun plans. And I may do some smaller cross stitch projects in between.
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I like to diamond paint with tweezers.
In fact, even though I've got an angled placer, I deliberately do this
To tweeze as many drills as possible.
I recently wore my oldest pair of tweezers down (or so I thought, now I'm not really sure), and I couldn't help thinking about how the ex wrecked my first pair of diamonds painting tweezers when I told them in no uncertain terms not to. Throughout my shift today, a few other things came to mind. It's like they were constantly wrecking my possessions and had complete disregard for me. "Oh but I wreck my own possessions too"
And I always told them, I was raised to respect other people's possessions at least as much as I would my own, but better to treat their possessions better. The ex acted as if this was........ insulting??? Like it was like......hick logic? Poor people logic??? No! It's fucking common decency. They always shut down when I got upset about it.
Like, suddenly I don't feel bad at all for the credit card bills they choose to rack up. And I feel even less guilty about the one time my cat tore up their back and the other time I did. They constantly disrespected my stuff and it pissed me off how much money they spent on nice charger cords only to wreck those cords and flippantly use my money when "we were out of money" to fucking buy more. Constantly.
Honestly? Frankly?? Even though I eat out like..... probably more, I still manage my money wayyyyyy better. I mean, if I didn't, I wouldn't even be eating restaurant food. I earn that money. That money is literally my time.
Also, I've hardly eaten half of the Krispy Kreme Elf donuts over the course of three days--my stomach is so upset, I didn't have any today. I don't understand. My stomach is sooooo uuupppsseeeeettttttt, like, I actually cannot stand it. Krispy Kreme donuts have never upset my stomach like this. I mean, I understand the blue ones. For some reason, blue food coloring fucks up my stomach. But my stomach was upset off like, the Santa belly ones and the regular glazed rings. And I chalked that up to the one time oreos did a doozy on my stomach too, like, less than a serving?? About a serving?? Definitely not a number of cookies where you'd be like, ahhh *sage nod* yes, I see.
But I'm pretty sure even the spaghetti and the Christmas wreath ones too.
Do I complain to Krispy Kreme?? Is this just a me problem??
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January 1937: Parnell Sideburns
Jan. 1, 1937 – Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Clark Gable’s Christmas gift to Carole Lombard a thoroughbred three-gaited saddle horse.
Jan. 1, 1937 – Austin-American Statesman
Carole Lombard’s intention to give up breakfast in bed and do more riding (on the horse Clark Gable gave her for Christmas).
Jan. 2, 1937 – The Kansas City Times
Lombard, usually voluble, is in the midst of a real romance. Her case with Gable is progressing, one might say. She knows the whole world knows it and doesn’t care. She does suffer a rise in temperature when she finds herself quoted concerning it.
“I’ve never discussed the matter,” she says.
Jan. 3, 1937 – Democrat and Chronicle
The arrive of Carole Lombard on any set where she happens to be working is no casual incident. Things may be dull and routine before she comes, but the moment she bursts in upon the company one begins to hear the crackle of electricity. The whole set seems to come to life.
Amid the shower of good-mornings Miss Lombard makes for her 8-by-12 dressing room on the sound stage. The dressing room is green outside, white inside; always, in the mornings, is fragrant with freshly-cut flowers.
Sometimes the flowers come from Clark Gable, sometimes from Mitchell Leisen, the star’s director in her current Paramount picture, “Swing High, Swing Low,” sometimes from herself.
Jan. 4, 1937: Unusual gifts
An after-Christmas survey of starry gifts discloses the fact that among all the diamond and sapphire bracelets and gorgeous cars and houses and lots exchanged in Hollywood this bumper year, the most unusual gift was received by Clark Gable!
Gable’s present from his “girl friend,” Carole Lombard, was a two-wheel buggy, with whip and all equipment, together with a trick cane that opens out and measures a horse’s height. A sort of follow-up gag for the old broken-down automobile she gave him several months ago, which Clark had dolled up with white paint and college boy gadgets. He drove it, too.
So we fully expect to see Mr. Gable dashing down the boulevard in his two-wheeler with his race horse, Beverly Hills, hitched thereto!
Carole and Clark are the village cut-ups. Mitchel Leisen, who is directing the current Lombard film, “Swing High, Swing Low,” expressed a desire for a horse this year to race at Santa Anita.
C and C gave him a hobby horse wearing a holly wreath for bridle. Zeppo Marx fared a little better – his Christmas gift from the pair of cut-ups was a decrepit donkey, which he found standing in a forest of hay on his front lawn Christmas morning!
Jan. 4, 1937 – The Boston Globe
Jan. 4, 1937 – Asbury Park Press
The boy who takes around the plug-in telephone from table to table in the studio restaurant is a literal table-hopper. At Metro, only commissary where the meal-disturber can get right into your soup, Robert Taylor, Clark Gable and James Stewart get the most calls (most of the stars lunch in their dressing suites). When Taylor, Gable or Stewart is on the line, romantic gossips figure that Barbara Stanwyck, Carole Lombard or Virginia Bruce is on the other end.
Jan. 5, 1937 – The Gaffney Ledger
Clark Gable has been lunching with Mary Anita Loos, who used to be Francis Lederer’s best girl. But don’t come to any false conclusions. Carole Lombard is still head-woman in Clark’s life.
Jan. 8, 1937 – Standard Sentinel
You draw a blank if you ask Bing Crosby to discuss, for instance, the importance of crooning. He’ll talk golf and horses, though. Carole Lombard is mainly interested in people, but if you ask her what she thinks about one in particular, you get no place fast – that person is Clark Gable. It must be love.
Jan. 9, 1937: New godparents
Jan. 9, 1937 – Los Angeles Times
Carole Lombard and Clark Gable were relegated to supporting roles in a one-act playlet last night when Dennis Clark Moriarty “stole the show.”
For it was Dennis Clark’s christening and neither film stars nor anyone else were going to take any honors from the month-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Moriarty. The father is a screen actor.
Gable and Miss Lombard acted as godparents for the baby at its baptism by Rev. John Conlon, pastor of St. Mary Magdalen’s Church.
The baby, born December 6, was named Clark in honor of its godfather.
Jan. 9, 1937 – Los Angeles Times
Jan. 9, 1937 – Chattanooga Daily Times
(Sheilah Graham)
Mrs. Rhea Gable is telling people that the reason she does not give Clark Gable the divorce he desires is to prevent his marriage to a certain film star. Is she referring to Carole Lombard?
Jan. 11, 1937 – The Bristol Herald Courier
When Clark Gable stands beside a roulette table, the other players watch him and forget to bet. Carole Lombard is the coolest of feminine gamblers.
Jan. 11, 1937: Sideburns for Parnell
Jan. 11, 1937 – News Journal
What! Sideburns on Gable? Clark Gable growing sideburns for his newest role, Parnell, Irish freedom leader, aids Carole Lombard by lighting her cigaret. The camera caught them in an off-guard moment at a Hollywood function. Clark has been linked romantically with Carole recently.
Jan. 13, 1937 – Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph
Honors now rest about even in the Carole Lombard-Clark Gable practical joke contest, but Carole shortly will prove herself the arch-ribber of the two by carrying the fight to the screen itself. With the aid of Director Mitchell Leisen, she is pulling a gag at Clark’s expense in her new picture, “Swing High, Swing Low.”
There is a scene in the script where Fred MacMurray and Dorothy Lamour go to a race track and put all their money on a certain horse. The dialogue has been switched so that you’ll hear them yell:”Come on ‘Beverly Hills’! For once in your life, win!” Beverly Hills is the name of Gable’s race horse. He has been kidded plenty about the fact that it never wins. The horse in the picture won’t either.
Jan. 13, 1937 – The St Louis Star and Times
Where there is Carole Lombard, there is tomfoolery – and most of the time, Clark Gable. The night Clark was to broadcast his “George Washington” skit over the radio, Carole beat him to the studio.When he arrived for work she had decorated his dressing room fit to startle a circus press agent. On the wall hung a huge picture of Washington, and beside it an equally enlarged photograph of Gable. Beneath was a placard which read: “Fathers of our country.” Miss Lombard had also brought in two small fir trees, on which she and a property man tied scores of preserved cherries. Two small hatchets completed the ensemble.
Jan. 16, 1937 – The Ithaca Journal
Carole Lombard, Hollywood’s No. 1 gagster, has started an epidemic of ribbing which includes even a scene in one of her pictures. Clark Gable is included in the ribbing, too, and it was to him that she recently sent a two-wheeled trash cart, presumably to be driven behind his race horse. She also sent a ton of hay and an $8 mule to Barbara Stanwyck and Mrs. Zeppo Marx, who are operating the Marwyck horse-breeding ranch in San Fernando. Mitchell Leisen, Miss Lombard’s director in “Swing High, Swing Low,” got into the feud innocently enough merely by stating that he wished he owned a race horse. Mr. Gable forthwith sent him a wooden hobby horse.
Leisen topped the rib by getting all dressed up in jockey clothes of the Gable pattern and colors, and having his picture taken on the hobby horse. The photo, framed and sent to Gable, was captioned: “Jockey Leisen Up on Beverly Hills” – Beverly Hills being the name of Gable’s non-winning nag.
Jan. 17, 1937 – The San Francisco Examiner
Hollywood Gossipers Hit Low Score in Guessing Romances
The batting average of the Hollywood gossipers, who see a romance in every mixed twosome, is notoriously low and it’s getting worse every year… Carole Lombard was practically engaged to writer Robert Riskin – until she started going about with Clark Gable.
Jan. 19, 1937 – The Owensboro Messenger
Carole Lombard is still incapacitated, and Clark Gable is running for her.
Jan. 20, 1937 – Monrovia News
Clark Gable and Carole Lombard visited a phonograph shop not long back, and bought one of those newfangled machines that combine radio, home-recording, loud speaker, and play twenty-four records at a time. Gable watched its performance, then said to the salesman, “The darn thing does everything but cook.” At which Miss Lombard snickered, “You might say the same of me.”
Jan. 25, 1937 – The Los Angeles Times
A new thrill was discovered yesterday by Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. They “truck” in the moonlight. No, it isn’t a dance.
Gable bought a new, up-to-the-minute station wagon, with radio, upholstered seats and everything. It was delivered to him at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
With his makeup still on, he climbed into his new toy and headed for Carole’s home. She was in the midst of her dinner, but Gable couldn’t wait. He loaded her into his shining new wagon and away they went – to go trucking in the moonlight, cold or no cold, and it has become a nightly habit with them now.
Jan. 31, 1937 – Star Tribune
Carole Lombard is suddenly stricken deaf if some new writer lands in our town and asks her when she expects to marry Clark Gable. Carole, one of the grandest scouts in the world, can freeze up to a temperature as cold as California orange groves have been this last week if that question is put to her.
On the other hand, Clark is equally noncommittal and frosty if he is asked about La Lombard. The subject of his friendship, he feels, is nobody’s business and he is probably right. Both of them have learned publicity can ruin any prospective romance.
Jan. 31, 1937 – St. Louis Post
Jean Muir and I were having lunch at the Vendome the other day, Jean perfectly turned out in a black velvet suit and the smartest looking cape of the same material falling to the hip line. …
While we were sitting there Carole Lombard and Clark Gable came in and sat at a nearby table. Carole immediately attracted the attention of all with her large picture hat of black alligator skin and a bag and gloves to match.
We stopped to speak to them as we went out and Carole told us that when she finishes work on her picture she is going to take a six weeks’ vacation and not go away any place, but just spend her time driving about in a racing sulkey which she has just ordered, and riding the horse which Clark gave her for Christmas.
The day after I saw them, Gable went to bed with the flu. He is the major casualty of the epidemic so far as the studios are concerned.
Jan. 31, 1937 – The Des Moines
Jan. 31, 1937 – The Des Moines
Amazing! Probably it’s a romantic gaze Carole Lombard is giving Clark Gable – they’re one of Hollywood’s current romances – but it looks almost as though his sideburns startle even her.
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The Southside Grinch
Summary: You hate Christmas with a fiery passion. Or so you thought.
Pairing: Sweet Pea x Reader
Rating: G
Word Count: 1.3k+
Warnings: None!
A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS @redhairdontcare732 // @shitty-marvel-fan732!! I hope you enjoy this and I’m sorry it wasn’t any longer. I feel like there’s not a WHOLE lot of Sweet Pea in this and I feel kind of shitty about that but...he is best Christmas boy.
Y/N huffed angrily as she saw the Christmas lights and fluffy green garland hanging on every trailer in Sunnyside, every trailer but hers. The sides were the same ashen grey, the white door bare of any wreath or sign of holiday cheer. No, it was barren of any kind of festivity almost as if she had forgotten to decorate.
She hadn’t forgotten.
Being born on Christmas Eve meant that everyone forgot your birthday. No one remembered to buy you a birthday present and instead gave you a two-in-one Christmas present that she felt was so incredibly unfair that her heart shrank three sizes smaller coming the day after Thanksgiving when all the stores and radio stations began to play Christmas music. The sound of it made her sick with fury.
She pulled into her driveway and parked her car, noting that her boyfriend’s bike was not present. She figured he was working late trying to make some extra money for the big event. Not that she wanted anything special or extravagant.
Deep down she prayed that he didn’t forget her birthday too, just like everyone else. He had at least agreed with her to not decorate the trailer for the holiday as to not let it overshadow what was supposed to be a special day for her. Sweet Pea had a rough history with the holiday season as well with absentee and abusive parental figures usually ruining it for him when he was very young. Now there was no one. Just like she had no one. They were a match made in heaven.
And while she was a Grinch on the outside, glaring at anyone who wished her a Merry Christmas or Happy Holiday, scowling at the bell ringers who begged for money for a crooked foundation, it could be said that perhaps somewhere deep down inside of her she didn’t quite hate Christmas at all.
Despite her birthday being overlooked, so many people seemed so happy this time of year. She quite enjoyed giving gifts herself to her close friends and boyfriend. So while Christmas Eve was usually the worst day of the year, Christmas day perhaps wasn’t too bad if she really thought about it…
It was presently December 23rd. The sun had set and the moon rose high into the sky looking like a round ball of snow suck up in the night sky. A sigh left her lips as she trudged through the fresh fallen ice and into the cold trailer. Immediately she turned the heat on in hopes that it would warm up fast, but knowing that it wouldn’t. She’d only be warm when Sweet Pea arrived home and crawled into bed with her.
And then. When the sun rose the next day, it would be the worst day of the year. Anxiety and dread filled her to the brim as she pledged to not leave her bed except to use the bathroom or to grab a bottle of wine or three. She walked into the kitchen, pledging start early this year. She saw a large box of sparkling white wine with a giant blue bow wrapped around it.
She looked quizzically at the present, unsure what to make of it. She plucked the folded note off the front of the box and read it. Hey baby, I know this time of year is rough for you. I will be home late tonight, enjoy yourself. Get some rest for tomorrow. -SP
She bit her lip to keep a smile from creepy across her face. She hoped he didn’t take her away from the warmth of her bed tomorrow, but had a sneaking suspicion that he’d make a big deal out of the day. If anyone were to ask, she’d say that it was not at all what she wanted. That she wanted to mope and hide and drink herself to sleep. But, in all honesty, Y/N wanted what almost every person wanted for their birthday: a special day that centered on her with love and happiness.
And the next day, Sweet Pea did just that. He let her sleep, waking her up with the smell of food cooking. He made her favorite breakfast food and brought it to her in bed when she called out for him. He kissed the top of her head lovingly and ate with her in their cozy full sized bed that wasn’t quite big enough for the two of them.
Next he took her ice skating and to the zoo and even the small art museum on the edge of the Northside. Pop’s for lunch, of course, with a complementary slice of pie from Pop himself piled high with cream and a yellow birthday candy lit on top.
Lastly, at night, after taking her to her favorite restaurant for dinner, he gave her the present he had spent months saving up for. A sterling silver necklace with a beautiful diamond encrusted snake curled into the shape of a heart. Tears pricked her eyes as she turned the charm over in her hand, seeing their anniversary date engraved into the back in impossibly small numbers.
“Sweet Pea…” She breathed out slowly, the salty drops of liquid finally spilling from her eyes. It was the most beautiful and thoughtful present she had ever received. But best of all, not one during the entire day had he spoken a word about Christmas.
That night, after a very lovely round of birthday sex that left you too tired to fight sleep, Sweet Pea slipped out from underneath the pile of blankets. He tugged on his boxers before going to the crawlspace and getting out box after box of Christmas decorations that he had hidden from her all month long. He put up a tree, lights, ornaments, tinsel, garland, wreaths, little Santa figurines and festive nutcrackers. It took him all night, but when he was done the trailer looked as if it had been decorated all month long instead of just for a few hours.
His finishing touch was to light some candles that were Evergreen scented to mimic the smell of a real Christmas tree. The smell of Christmas filled the tiny trailer as Sweet Pea collapsed onto the couch with a proud smile on his face. There were a few neatly wrapped presents under the tree, not much but he knew it would be enough to make her happy.
“Sweet Pea?” A hazy voice called out to him and his eyes fluttered open, not knowing when he had fallen asleep. He looked up at his girlfriend’s face, her eyes huge with wonder at the sight of all the Christmas decorations, “did you do all this?”
Insider her heart was swelling with joy at the glittering lights and bright decorations. The tree was Southside themed with biker Santa ornaments, festive snakes, and various other ornaments that served as references to little inside jokes they had, and there was even a tiny baseball bat that looked exactly like his. Completely with painted on blood splatter.
He quickly stood up, ignoring his limbs heavy with sleep as he clambered over to her. “Yes, after you fell asleep I came out here to surprise you…” He looked at his beat up old watch, it was four in the morning. “Why are you awake?”
She smiled bashfully, “I wanted to shake the presents to see if I could figure out what you got me. Then I smelled the candles...”
Excitement filled his chest. He had this sneaking suspicion that Y/N loved Christmas somewhere inside of her, despite the bah humbug persona she puts on every year. He took her into his arms and pulled her close, a mischievous smile on his face.
Her eyes flickered upward, her head tilting at the image above her. “Why is there spinach hanging from the doorframe?”
“I couldn’t find any mistletoe.” Sweet Pea added, biting his lip with anticipation. She looked at it for a second longer before a fit of giggles erupted from her beautiful lips.
She pulled his face down and kissed him over and over until their lips were puffy and swollen. “Merry Christmas, Pea.”
“Merry Christmas, baby.”
#riverdaleevents#reindeer games: blitzen#sweet pea#sweet pea x reader#riverdale#sweet pea imagine#sweet pea imagines#sweet pea fanfic#sweet pea fanfiction#riverdale imagine#riverdale fanfic#riverdale imagines#riverdale fanfiction#I almost wrote smut but decided to write fluff instead#and I'm terrible at fluff so I'm sorry#Dx#I LOVE YOU RED
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Fic: What Do Stars Do Best?
To: @kiichu
From: @pomegranate-belle
You gave me a lot of leeway on this one and it’s definitely out there, but I couldn’t think of an AU that sounded more fun for these two than Stardust; hope it’s fluffy enough for you! Merry Christmas!
AO3 link
Once upon a time not so very long ago in the kingdom of Stormhold, there lived an automaton – a being created from a marriage between magic and machinery. Her name was Luna, and she loved to watch the sky. On the whole, she spent her existence quietly – assisting the alchemist who had created her in his research, tending to the garden set out back of his manor, and reading novels from the library’s collection out in the sunroom, curled up in an armchair like a cat. There were slight variations, but every day followed nearly the same pattern. A quiet, undisturbed life without change or momentum.
Until the night the star fell from the sky.
Shooting stars were rare in Stormhold, but they invariably set off the worst sort of trouble because every witch in the kingdom scrambled to get hands on them. On their hearts, which were filled with enough magic to extend one’s life hundreds and hundreds of years when eaten. The practice was barbaric, but effective.
Though she’d often daydreamed about rescuing a star after reading tales of heroics, Luna thought little of the star when she caught sight of it except to wonder sadly at its fate. She herself was a potential target for witches, who stripped the world of magic like vultures for their own use, and the alchemist had never let her leave the manor grounds unaccompanied. More than that, the alchemist had no interest in stars. All his focus was trained inwards, on the makeup of the human soul. On recreating his lost love.
She herself had been an attempt at that goal, though the alchemist had never told her so specifically. But Luna’s biggest flaw was her curiosity, and she’d braved the locked, dusty rooms in the east wing of the manor once – only to find a faded painting of her own likeness. The connection wasn’t difficult to make.
Thinking of these things, she followed the falling star – a streak of silver fire flashing across the night – with her eyes until it disappeared beyond her sight line. Even after it was gone, Luna couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from the night sky, the blue-black fabric of it, the other stars beginning to come out and shine.
Though he was hard at work and clearly absorbed, the alchemist had noticed her absence by the time she finally drifted back to his lab.
“Where were you, Luna?” he asked curiously, eye to a microscope. “I wanted your help with this five minutes ago.”
“I-I’m sorry. I was out in the garden. A-a star fell and I got distracted,” she explained, fidgeting with the fabric of her ankle-length skirt.
Luna didn’t expect more than a grunt of acknowledgement at the statement, but the alchemist whipped his head towards her immediately.
“A star?” he demanded. “It fell, just now? Did you see where? Was it nearby?”
Luna shook her head, quietly baffled.
“N-no, it, um, it looked like it landed very far away. You shouldn’t have to worry about witches disrupting your research—”
“Forget witches!” came the frantic response, and the alchemist stood so quickly his chair toppled to the floor. “I need that star, Luna. For her sake.”
There was only ever one ‘her’ on the alchemist’s mind. He didn’t need to specify.
“Did you, um, reach a breakthrough?” she asked him, concerned that he hadn’t mentioned it to her if he had.
“It’s the only thing left,” he explained, dragging his fingers through his gray hair in an agitated manner. “The only thing I haven’t tried. The heart of a star has enough power to turn back time and make an old person young again. It has to have enough power to bring her back to us.”
Luna then experienced a sensation she might have called ‘stomach-twisting’ if she’d had a stomach to feel it in. The alchemist was already rushing around the lab, digging haphazardly through drawers until he found what he was searching for.
“But… To get the heart of a star, you’d need to, to k-kill it,” Luna pointed out weakly. “Like the witches do.”
It had been the alchemist who taught her about ethics, morality, how sacred life was. There was a pause, and the alchemist’s shoulders drooped.
“I know,” he said quietly. “But… It’s not like the witches. They’re doing it for themselves, because they want to live longer. I’m doing it to save a life.”
“I… I just…”
But the alchemist finally closed his hand around what he’d been searching for and dropped it into Luna’s palm before she could come up with a more coherent argument. The item was unmistakably a Babylon candle – though at its size, ‘candle’ was perhaps generous. It was more of a waxy green-black nub.
“There’s enough left for one journey,” the alchemist said solemnly. “Enough to get you to the star, but not back to the manor. Find it, take it with you, and bring it home.” He took a shaky breath, and then said three binding words he’d never used in her whole existence: “That’s an order.”
There was no room for argument there, no leeway or wiggle room. And so, Luna lit the candle. Then she closed her eyes and thought hard about the star, about the way it flashed across the night sky, falling to earth wreathed in flame.
When she opened them again, she stood in the middle of an enormous, glassy crater, hand empty. She was much closer to the mountains, she noted, glancing up at the peaks towering over her.
And then she saw the star.
He stood before her in a glowing silver dress, belted at the waist with an embroidered sash that glittered as though studded with diamonds. Tousled golden hair spilled over his shoulders, and his eyes were sharp and luminous like chunks of tourmaline. Everything about him was vivid and fantastical.
But he didn’t shine.
Which made sense, Luna supposed – it would be difficult to be content and happy when you’ve just fallen from the sky into so much danger. Still, he appeared as elegant and regal as she’d always imagined a star would be.
Until he opened his mouth.
“Who the hell are you?”
Startled as she was by his crassness, it took a few moments to answer.
“I-I’m Luna,” she explained. “I, um, I was s-sent here to get you. What’s your name?”
He scoffed, turning his face to the side.
“Dio.”
It was a very nice name, Luna thought, and then wondered if it was a characteristic name for a star or not. But she shook off the thought promptly – she’d been given an order and she had to complete it. Besides, she attempted to reason to keep the twisting feeling out of her belly, it was something the alchemist wanted. Her only family in the world. He had to know better than her, didn’t he?
“W-well, we should get going, Dio,” Luna began, a bit awkwardly, gesturing behind herself and back in the direction of the manor.
“Going?”
Dio crossed his arms over his chest and planted his feet more firmly.
“Yes, I—”
“There’s no way you could make me go anywhere with you,” he interrupted snidely.
Luna blinked.
“I’m much stronger than I look,” she told him, but he only rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, right.”
Minutes later, they were marching steadily away from the crater, Luna’s left hand locked around Dio’s right wrist. The star tried vainly to tug his arm from her grip, but didn’t go so far as to hit or attack her. Not that it would have really mattered if he had; Luna was quite sturdy. Eventually, though, Dio gave up his struggling and grumbled instead.
“Where are you taking me anyway?” he demanded at last.
“Back to my home,” explained Luna, and didn’t slow her pace. “To the, the alchemist who created me. He sent me to bring you back. Based on, um, the position of the, of the stars—” And oh, was that an awkward thing to say with him right next to her!— “It’s about a, um… A nine days’ journey, I think.”
Dio stopped walking, and stumbled forward a step or two in Luna’s uncompromising grasp before she realized he’d halted.
“You’re an automaton?”
She glanced back at him, and felt her face blanch hot and pale with the white artificial blood which ran through her veins. No one had ever said it so plainly before — not the alchemist and certainly not any of his rare guests.
“I-I, um… Yes,” Luna admitted, straightening up as best she could, though it still left her only about eye-level with the star’s chin. “Yes, I am.”
“Huh.” There was no response about the revelation other than that, except the interested look in Dio’s eyes. “So… You’re taking me to an alchemist, not a witch.”
“Y-yes, that’s right.”
“But he’s probably gonna kill me for my heart too.”
Luna flinched. A wry smirk overtook Dio’s face, and he shook his head.
“Whatever. Lead on, I guess.”
It was a worryingly nonchalant attitude. Luna wasn’t sure if he didn’t believe her or if he was just confident he could find a chance to escape from her. And even with that slight, sarcastic bit of amusement on his face, he didn’t shine at all.
The sun was just creeping into the sky when Dio’s stomach rumbled. By that point, he had agreed to walk along with Luna and didn’t have to be dragged by the hand. His sense of direction was ‘fucked up completely’ by the change in perspective, he’d explained, and he’d hardly know where he was going anyway, she’d clearly have the advantage. Which was true, so Luna agreed, even if she thought he probably had an ulterior motive for it.
Of course, it also meant she wasn’t right next to him when he picked a round, purple fruit with blue spots from a nearby tree. She only caught sight of it when he lifted it to his mouth for a bite, and she ended up shouting.
“N-no, not those ones!”
He froze, the spotted fruit still in his hand.
“… Why?”
“S-sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just… The ones with blue spots are poisonous,” Luna explained, moving closer to take it from his grasp and drop it onto the ground. “Y-you need to look for fruits with red spots instead.”
She pointed to another tree, which had the safe fruit, and helped him gather a few to eat as they walked. Then, worried Dio would get himself almost poisoned again if she didn’t stick close, Luna laced their fingers together.
They continued on for a few more hours before Dio’s pace slowed considerably.
“Aren’t we going to rest and sleep?” he complained.
Luna’s brow furrowed.
“But… I don’t require sleep,” she said.
“Yeah, well I do!” snapped Dio, who then had to stifle a yawn with his free hand.
Luna blinked. She hadn’t considered that, but… Stars did rest during the day, didn’t they? She nodded.
“Th-then, I can carry you while you sleep—”
“No fucking way!”
“I-I’m sorry…” she apologized, not sure why he was so against the idea. “I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just the, um, the most efficient way…”
“Who cares about that? It’s embarrassing is what it is, it’d look ridiculous. I’ll just sleep here.”
Luna followed Dio’s gesture to a slightly more open space between the trees, not quite large enough to be called a clearing. There weren’t any rocks in it or anything but…
“I-it doesn’t look very comfortable,” Luna pointed out.
“I don’t give a shit, I’m not moving another step.”
The tone was belligerent and full of energy, but Dio really did look quite tired. So she glanced around, trying to find the most comfortable-looking spot, and settled down with her legs outstretched.
“Y-you, um, you can rest your head in my lap. I’ll watch over you,” she promised, patting her skirt-clad thigh.
He stared at her for a few seconds, saying nothing, and his ears turned a little pink.
“Of course you will,” he muttered finally. “What’d you do if I died or something, your little mission would fucking implode.”
Then Dio settled down on his side in the grass and laid his head in Luna’s lap, posture stiff. He was feeling awkward, she deduced. Laying one’s head in another’s lap was considered rather intimate, she supposed. But it was still clearly the best option, with the ground so rough and hard — he’d never get any sleep if he tried to just lie with his head on the forest floor. Slowly but surely as Dio began to fall asleep, the tension eased out of his frame. After almost thirty minutes, he was completely unconscious.
Asleep, he finally looked peaceful for the very first time. He still didn’t shine — though Luna didn’t know if stars could shine in their sleep. Perhaps they didn’t, if they slept during the day, because she’d never seen one shining then. Luna let the idea idle around in her mind a little longer, then went back to studying her… Captive?
Even without shining, he was beautiful. Luna wasn’t often overcome with feeling when she wasn’t reading a novel, but the urge to see if Dio’s hair was as soft as it looked was startlingly strong. She resisted quietly for three minutes, four. And then she thought, just one touch would sate her curiosity, wouldn’t it? So she traced a single index finger across the strands. They were as soft as they looked. Perhaps softer. So Luna chanced combing a whole hand through. A quiet sigh flitted past Dio’s lips, so she did it again. Before she’d quite realized it, Luna was wholesale playing with the sleeping star’s hair.
She closed her eyes and inhaled. The morning air was fresh and warm and clean, with a hint of pine and grass. But below it, she could smell Dio too — a bright tang of magic, something metallic, and a pleasant whiff of heat like the scent the air took on in a room with a stove just beginning to warm. Altogether, the medley of fragrances was pleasant, and Luna let her mind ramble idly as she wove plaits into Dio’s cornsilk hair and listened to his even breathing.
For three days, they continued in relatively the same pattern, walking at night and resting during the day. More than once, Luna had to steer Dio away from inedible plants, and he would defensively remind her that it was hard to see little details like that from all the way up in the sky, and anyway it was dark. Still, his attitude subtly improved as the days passed, and he seemed more open and curious about the world.
Even then, he didn’t shine.
Luna was reminded of something she’d read about stars – that they were incapable of shining when they had a broken heart. Was Dio’s heart broken, she wondered. Perhaps by the separation from his family in the sky, the other stars? Or was it something else entirely? She’d at least figured him out enough by that point to know not to ask, but she did wonder.
With nearly a third of their journey under their belts without issue, Luna made the mistake of thinking it might be smooth sailing – that they’d make it to the manor without encountering a witch. She was wrong, of course.
They were cornered on the morning after the fourth night, right when Dio was looking around again for a good place to sleep. Luna had been too busy trying to help, and hadn’t been paying enough attention to their surroundings. The witch nearly snuck up on them, except that she stepped on a dry twig.
Luna took up a place in front of Dio immediately, to protect him. Not a forest witch, she surmised, by appearance; too damp and gray and ragged. A swamp witch, maybe. There were distinctions, but the part of her machinery that held such classifications had been muddled by fear and couldn’t make the proper connections.
“Come now, little girl,” the witch said, a rude smile on her face and an obsidian knife in her hand. “Give me the star.”
Luna couldn’t speak. Her voice box was malfunctioning. There was nothing wrong with it, but it was malfunctioning anyway. She shook her head frantically and spread her arms, though realistically it would do little to cover Dio better. The witch laughed.
But then… A rush of warmth, energy, spread through her body, and a translucent shield appeared suddenly between them and the witch. Luna didn’t know how long it would hold, but it would at least be long enough for one of them to get away.
“R-run!” Luna managed to force past her lips.
She didn’t dare look behind her, but she heard the sound of feet slapping against the ground.
“You little…!” the witch snarled, flinging out her empty hand and summoning a burst of fire that bounced off the shield. “You cost me my star!”
It took only a few more blows to shatter the shield completely.
Luna was half made of magic, which explained the spell she’d performed not a minute earlier. It had always been a loose possibility in the back of Luna’s mind, but not one pressing enough to explore. She’d never harnessed it, purposely or otherwise, but she tried in that moment, wishing hard for another shield to protect herself. Despite her determination, there was no warm rush of energy in response. When the witch took another menacing step forward, Luna stumbled backwards and tripped over a root, landing hard on her backside – the witch, eyes wild and glowing green with rage, loomed above her, knife held high.
Then there was a loud crack and the witch collapsed to the ground. Dio stood over her with a massive branch in his hands.
“D-Dio…”
“You ok?” he asked, helping Luna to her feet.
“Y-yes, I’m fine, I… Why did you…”
Even she wasn’t sure what she wanted to ask, but Dio gave her an answer anyway.
“Think I was gonna let myself be kidnapped by that?” he asked, nudging the witch with his boot. “No fucking way. She’d eat my heart! You don’t even have to eat, and anyway you don’t have the temperament for it. Seriously, even if you tried you’d wimp out immediately and start fucking apologizing.”
“Y-you… You could have just run off,” Luna pointed out quietly. “And not come back.”
Dio froze. His fingers tightened minutely around the branch still held in his hands like a club.
“I… I don’t know where the hell I am,” he insisted at last, brusquely. “What kinda idiot goes running off into the fucking wilderness? If I’m going to ditch you it’s at least gonna be in a village.”
“I tell you I’m gonna run off in a village and you immediately take us to a village,” Dio said the next evening, crossing his arms over his chest. “You trying to get rid of me or something?”
“No, just… We… We need to get you some less conspicuous clothes,” Luna said firmly. “That way, um, it won’t be so obvious to witches that you’re a star.”
“And what are you gonna buy them with?” asked Dio, clearly skeptical. “I might not know a lot about life down here but I know things cost money.”
Luna smiled.
“Cost, yes… But, um… Money, not always,” she told him.
She’d gone down to the market closest to the alchemist’s manor once or twice in her life, and its vendors often asked for strange things in exchange for their wares. Such was the case in any village in Stormhold that made use of magic. Of course she’d have to be careful of traveling witches, but… It would be best in the long run to get Dio something that didn’t glitter so much — they still had a long ways to go to get back to the manor, and being inconspicuous was key. Only stars wore silver dresses.
Thankfully, though she’d never been to the village of Serezo, Luna knew that one of the alchemist’s frequent visitors lived there. Carlos was a water mage who was often sent to quell raging fires when they engulfed the nearby forests and threatened the village’s crops. He also, she remembered from their rare conversations, ran the local bakery with his sister. So Luna led the way along the outskirts of the village, keeping out of sight and following the scent of baking bread.
When she knocked on the back door, it was Carlos who answered. He seemed startled to see her, almost more than to see her in the company of a star. After taking in their slightly ragged appearances, he opened the door wider.
“Why don’t you both come in?”
Dio glanced at Luna, suspicious, but she put on her most encouraging smile and nodded.
“Dio, this, um, this is Carlos, he’s… A friend.”
Gratifyingly, Dio took her at her word, and followed her inside the bakery.
“Maria, can you watch the loaves?” Carlos called into the next room. “I need a few minutes!”
There was an affirmative reply, and so Carlos ushered them out of the bakery proper and into a cozy living area attached to the shop. He proceeded to listen calmly and without judgment to their tale so far, although his expression did pinch a little when Luna explained the alchemist’s orders.
“I, um, I thought you could maybe take something of mine and barter for clothes,” she finished awkwardly. “So Dio won’t be as obvious to witches.”
Carlos set a hand on her shoulder.
“There’s no need for that. He can borrow something of mine.”
“O-oh, I couldn’t ask you to—”
“Nonsense,” Carlos said. “We’re about the same build and height, and it’s to keep you both safe. Is that alright with you, Dio?”
The star, not prepared to be addressed after standing quietly behind Luna for so long, started.
“Yeah, that’s fine, I guess,” he said, shrugging and fidgeting with the sash around his waist. “Doesn’t make any difference to me.”
“I’ll be right back, then,” Carlos said, smiling.
He returned promptly with a loose, fern green shirt, a pair of brown trousers, a small strip of leather, and a rucksack.
“What’s this for?” Dio asked, picking the leather up off the pile.
“Thought you might want to tie your hair back,” explained Carlos. “You can put your star clothing in the rucksack, and I’ll give you a loaf of bread before you head on your way. Wouldn’t want you to leave hungry – this is a bakery, after all!”
Dio just stared, uncomprehending, as though the idea of Carlos’s kindness was completely beyond the realm of possibility. He was being very generous, Luna knew, but she wondered if Dio’s life had really been so empty of generosity that he had no frame of reference for it.
“Th-thank you, Carlos,” she said in his stead. “We really appreciate it. I’ll, um, come with you so Dio can get changed.”
She followed Carlos back to the bakery, and was introduced to Maria, his sister. Then, after several minutes, Dio emerged dressed in his new clothing. The colors suited him, Luna thought – brought out the green in his eyes. He’d also drawn his golden hair over one shoulder and tied the leather strip around it to gather it together loosely. His star clothes glimmered in his arms, and the sight of him looking so different was novel enough that Luna could only drink him in for several long moments.
“What’s that look for?” Dio asked at last, ears pink.
“B-because you look very pretty,” she explained simply.
Dio’s face bloomed from pink to red in an instant, and he covered it with a hand.
“Who the fuck just says shit like that outta nowhere,” he muttered. “Jeez.”
The words and the tone sounded angry, but Luna was fairly certain they didn’t actually mean that Dio was angry. His feelings had seemed irrational and incomprehensible at first, especially compared to the alchemist’s more even, easily-followable keel. But after observing Dio for several days, Luna could see that he often hid other feelings behind false shows of anger. It was difficult to gauge, but Luna had a pretty good idea this time.
Because Dio had begun to shine. It was a subtle glow, shimmering off his skin and hair, but Luna saw it, and a strange staticky feeling filled her chest.
Only when they were back in the forest did the thought come to her — Dio hadn’t attempted to escape while they were at Serezo.
That moment marked something of a turning point between them. They continued their journey at the same pace, but it felt different somehow. More open, or friendly. Luna began to fill what had been days of relative silence with speech. She talked more about the alchemist and his research, about her garden and the things she’d read. There weren’t really any other topics to draw on — her experiences were limited. But Dio actually urged her on a little, subtly, enough that she nearly didn’t notice it.
He mentioned too the things that were different about looking at life from the ground rather than the sky, although he very obviously avoided talk of his family. In the dawn hours just before settling into sleep, he sharpened a stone he’d picked up – in case they ran into another witch – and hummed unfamiliar tunes, star songs. More than all that, he began to shine. Not brightly, or regularly, but if Luna showed him something that made a slight smile cross his face, there began also to be a soft silver glow off his hair. Every sight of it produced the same warm, buzzing static feeling in Luna’s metal heart.
Neither one of them spoke about their destination, and as the nights passed it faded in Luna’s mind. As though they would never reach their journey’s end, as if they’d just keep traveling together forever.
Then, of course, the bluebird came.
Like Luna, it was a creature made with the alchemist’s magic, and it was larger than any normal bluebird would be. Tied to one of its legs was an envelope, and it hopped down onto a branch and trilled, sticking out its leg for Luna. She opened the envelope, and found inside it a piece of rolled up paper and a stick of charcoal. She unfurled the letter first and read it.
The missive was a straightforward one. The alchemist simply wanted to know if Luna was safe, if she had the star in her possession, and how far she estimated she was from the manor. It sent the truth crashing back down onto Luna’s shoulders. The alchemist didn’t want to speak to Dio, he wanted him as an ingredient in his research.
Luna felt a silken brush of hair as Dio leaned over her shoulder to get a look at the letter. He came to nearly the same conclusion.
“Kinda forgot you were taking me to get killed,” he mused, but when Luna glanced up at him he wasn’t looking at her or the letter – he was staring at the bird.
“I-I… Dio I’m so sorry,” Luna stammered. “I… I don’t, I can’t… He ordered me…”
“You’ve got a job to do, don’t you?” he asked, and his expression was flat — gave nothing away. “He’s your family. Your superior.”
“Dio… I, I don’t…”
He shrugged.
“At least it’s for a good cause, right? You told me about how he’s trying to bring his wife back. That’s not such a horrible thing to die for. Fuck if I’ve done anything useful with my life so far.”
“No!”
The shout came out much louder than Luna intended, and she clapped her hands over her mouth at the volume, dropping the alchemist’s letter. Dio’s blue-green eyes went wide. Startled. There was a glimmer of starlight off his hair, the wary beginning of a shine. The sight gave Luna the courage she needed to drop her hands away from her lips and continue.
“It’s… It’s like you said. He is my family. He’s… And I, I don’t know exactly what he wants to do with you, with your heart,” she admitted, “but I do know it’s not something good. And I can’t… I just can’t take you back there. It’s not right. I won’t do it. I’ll find a way around the order, I will.”
“And what else do you think you’re going to do?” he asked, wry and with a weary look in his eyes. “You can’t disobey him.”
Determined, Luna took his hand in both of her own.
“I don’t know…! I… A loophole. L-let me find you a Babylon candle and get you back to the sky,” she pleaded, squeezing Dio’s hand.
“What’s the point of going back,” he muttered, looking stubbornly away from her and pulling out of her grip. “The sky isn’t any better than down here.”
Luna frowned.
“But it’s your home, it would fit the, the wording of the order—”
“Some home. There’s nothing waiting for me there.”
The place in Luna’s chest where her metal heart lived ached. She wrung her hands, unable to properly express her agitation any other way.
“B-but…”
“It wasn’t an accident that I fell.” Dio paused, lips still slightly parted, as though startled he’d admitted it aloud. “I mean… Oh, fuck it— They kicked me out. The other stars in my constellation. My family. My superior. I didn’t do what they wanted me to, so they didn’t want me anymore. And that means it’s not my home anymore. It won’t work as a loophole. But… I get it, ok? If you don’t do what they want, people turn on you, and that’s fine if it’s someone you barely know, but. Fuck. Your family? Sometimes you, you know, want more than that. You don’t even get a choice, though, so whatever… Whatever happens, I won’t blame you.”
Only then did Luna realize that the reason Dio was getting so fuzzy was because her eyes were filling with tears.
“Dio, I’m so—”
“Whatever happens,” he cut over her to repeat, with a very brave look on his face, “it’s better than getting my heart eaten by a fucking witch. I don’t care if I die, but fuck if I’m going out like that.”
I don’t want you to die, she thought desperately but couldn’t seem to say. That would be horrible. You’re a good person and you saved me; you don’t deserve to die. This is all wrong.
“Where… Wh-where would you go, then?” she asked him instead. “If you could live, if you could go anywhere? Surely you’ve seen something… From, from up in the sky, I mean. Someplace that looked happy. Someplace that could be home.”
Dio sighed, and one hand came up to absently play with his hair.
“There was a town,” he said, voice going soft. “Must be further south of here, it’s down in the middle of the valley. It’s all… Quiet, and shit, but not bad. The people there seem happy. They bicker sometimes, but they garden and do magic and raise their families and watch fireflies on the hill on summer nights. They’ve got a, uh, Star Festival I used to watch every year.”
“Oh,” Luna murmured.
It was more than the ethics.
She didn’t, she realized suddenly, want to take Dio to the alchemist. And she didn’t want to send him back to the sky either, even though he’d be safer there. She wanted him to stay with her. She wanted to go with him to the little town in the valley and live in a small, cozy house and grow a new garden and watch the fireflies on the hilltop in summer evenings.
She wanted it more than anything in the world.
“I love you,” she said wonderingly.
Dio choked on his inhale and spent the next several seconds coughing.
“You what?” he wheezed at last.
“I-I just realized. I love you.”
Dio groaned and covered his face with his hands.
“How can you just say shit like that!” he demanded, voice muffled by his palms.
“But… It’s true,” said Luna, confused.
“Yeah, but you don’t just say it like… Ugh.”
“Do, um,” she began hesitantly, “do you also…?”
“Yes, I—” he began, irritated, but faltered; the blush on his face deepened. “The, the feeling’s mutual.”
The staticky feeling was back, and it spread all the way to Luna’s fingers and toes. She smiled, because even though she didn’t know what to do next, even though a solution seemed impossible, Dio cared about her too. And that was all she needed to keep her hope up.
Luna took a deep breath, nodded, and thought. The alchemist had created her. She didn’t hate him. But she couldn’t go back, not if it meant hurting Dio, killing Dio. And yet, her orders – the ones she couldn’t disobey because even if she was half magic, she was also still half machine – were ironclad.
‘Find it, take it with you, and bring it home.’
She could have justified sending Dio back to the sky, his home, except he’d disavowed it. Luna stroked the bluebird’s little head, troubled. There was no way out. Because the only other home was her own home, which was…
Which was…
The realization hit her, and her eyes went wide. She picked up the letter from the alchemist and began writing a response on the back with the little stub of charcoal in the envelope. Once done, she rolled the letter back up and turned to Dio.
“Can… Can I, um, have some of your hair?” she asked him.
He blinked, uncomprehending.
“My… Hair?”
“Just, um, a little bit?”
“I guess…”
He pulled the sharpened stone from his pocket and sliced off a lock of hair, handing it to Luna. She slipped it and her letter into the tiny envelope and waved the bluebird off — back to the alchemist’s manor, but not back home. She hoped that little piece of star would help the alchemist’s research. But she would never return.
“South of here, right?” she asked, turning to Dio with a smile.
He stared back at her, brows furrowed and teal eyes squinted.
“But… Your orders,” he said.
“There was a loophole after all,” explained Luna, feeling buoyant and free. “He told me to bring you home. But home doesn’t have to be the manor. It could mean anywhere or anyone I decide; I-I want to make a choice of my own. And… I’m choosing you.”
“You mean it?” he asked, voice hesitant.
“I really, really do. Let’s… Let’s go home, Dio.”
At the sound of those words, Dio shone. So bright that Luna felt like it should hurt her eyes, but it didn’t. The dew on the grass glowed silver under his light. Though his features were as sharp as they’d been from the beginning, the look in his eyes was molten. He held out a shimmering hand.
She took it.
#zero escape#virtue's last reward#dio/luna#kiichu#pomegranate-belle#zecret santa 2019#stardust#submission
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“The Christmas Cottage” Chapter 1: Time
A/N: Happy Advent everyone! Here is my gift for the OQ Advent story, which was the one chosen to kick off the calendar! It’s a long one so I’m dividing it up in chapters. I hope you all enjoy this story based on the Hallmark movie “The Christmas Cottage.”
Regina thanked her driver as she opened the car door. She shivered as the December cold filled the car. Stepping out into it, she closed the door behind her and quickly hurried toward the front door of the building in front of her. Reaching out, she wrapped her gloved hand around the golden handle and pulled the door toward her. The scent of pine wafted past her, coming off the festive wreath hanging on the door. It sent a pang through her heart but she pushed it aside as she strode into the warm building.
She stopped at her mailbox, opening it and finding it empty. Figuring her fiancé already checked it, she closed the door and continued into the main part of the lobby. It was decorated for the season with wreaths hung on the walls and in between the elevators. An evergreen bough entwined with colored lights lined the desk where security sat and a tall artificial tree sat in one corner, its lights twinkling and fake presents resting underneath it. To complete the festive atmosphere, holiday music played over the speakers and in the elevators.
It all seemed such a stark contrast to how her day had been. She was still trying to process everything that had happened as she passed their night security guard, Thomas. He tipped his hat to her as she headed straight for the elevator bank, in no mood to talk to anyone but her fiancé. Maybe then it would all feel real.
As she rode up in the elevator, her mind was a jumble of thoughts and she got lost in trying to sort them out. She jumped as the elevator arrived at her floor and the doors opened. Taking a deep breath, she exited the elevator and headed down the hallway to her apartment. Regina pulled out her keys and opened the door, stepping inside. “Daniel? I’m home.”
He didn’t respond but that wasn’t unusual. Daniel often continued working after he left the office and he liked to listen to music when he did so, meaning he likely hadn’t heard her. She knew he was home because the mail sat on the table where they kept it. Regina looked through the items and determined nothing needed her immediate attention.
After hanging up her coat and scarf, she headed down the hallway and entered the bedroom they had converted into Daniel’s office. It was painted white with wood floors and decorated with framed black and white photographs of famous buildings. His drawing table was located by the large window in the room, giving him a gorgeous view of the Manhattan skyline as he worked.
Daniel sat there, earbuds in his ear as his head bopped along to whatever song he was listening to. His pencil flew across the paper in front of him, sketching out a building Regina knew was going to be magnificent once it was built. She hated to interrupt him when he was in a groove but she needed to talk to him, so she gently placed her hand on his shoulder.
He jumped and twisted his body to look at who had disturbed him, relaxing when he saw it was her. Daniel took out the earbuds and smiled at her. “Hey, babe. You just get home?”
“Yes,” she replied, kissing him. She studied the building he was drawing, noting that it didn’t look familiar. “Is this new?”
“It is,” he confirmed. “With luck, this is going to win the bid and become the new centerpiece for the Belfrey Center in Seattle.”
Excitement and pride filled her, pushing her other feelings to the side. She knew his firm was going to submit a bid to Midas Industries but there hadn’t been a decision about which architect would be the one to design it. Daniel had been talking about it for almost two months and she knew he had been campaigning hard to be the one they chose. His hard work had paid off.
“Congratulations!” she said, rubbing his back. “This is a big deal!”
“Well, we haven’t secured the contract yet,” he said. “This is just for the bid.”
“You were still chosen out of all the architects in your firm to create the bid. That means that they respect and value your work. Even you don’t get the bid, this is the start of big things from you. I just know it,” she told him.
He grinned. “Thanks. How was your day?”
The question brought her crazy and confusing day back to the forefront of her mind. Her good mood disappeared as she grew somber. “It was bad.”
“Bad? How?” he asked, frowning.
“Albert Spencer died,” she replied. “He had a heart attack last night. Or at least that’s the assumption since the janitor found him stiff and cold at his desk this morning.”
Daniel’s eyes widened a bit. “How awful! What happens now?”
She sighed, leaning against the wall as she felt fatigue take over. “I think they’re still working that out. We spent the day contacting all his clients. They are thankfully understanding and were expecting our work for them to pause for the holidays anyway. So now I guess it’s just the funeral and then figuring out who will be working with his clients after the New Year.”
“Are they going to replace him? Make someone else partner in his stead?” Daniel asked. She could see the wheels turning in his head and it made the knot in her stomach tighten even more, not loosen.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “Everyone was talking about it but I think the other partners aren’t going to focus on that until after the New Year.”
He nodded, rubbing her arm with a smile. “You’re a shoo-in for it, you know. You’re one of their best lawyers. Spencer had to know that or he wouldn’t have kept you on his team.”
She knew he had a point but still shook her head. “I think Spencer was grooming Arthur King to take his place and he’s probably going to get it. Aside from Mal Draco, it’s pretty much a good old boys club.”
“That’s not fair,” Daniel replied, crossing his arms as he frowned.
“I know,” she replied. “But think about it. How many women are in top level positions at your firm?”
He was silent before shrugging. “No company is perfect. I hope ours changes soon. But I can’t focus on that. I need to focus on this.”
Daniel tapped the paper on his desk and she nodded. “Right. Just like I can’t focus on what the firm will do. I need to focus on Mary Margaret’s wedding. Which reminds me—did you ask Thomas downstairs to put a hold on our mail and newspaper?”
“Oh.” Daniel paused but the sheepish grin he gave her when he forgot about something and was embarrassed by it did not appear. Instead, he stayed somber as he said: “We need to talk about that.”
“You’re not coming,” she said, backing away from him. She didn’t pose it as a question—she just knew. Disappointment flooded through her as she pressed her hand to her stomach. “We’ve been planning this for months. I was really excited to go away with you.”
“I know,” he replied soothingly, rubbing her arms. “We can plan another getaway, one where there’s no one else. Maybe we can spend Valentine’s Day on a tropical beach.”
“It wasn’t just about us going away together,” she replied softly. “I was looking forward to going to the wedding with you. For us to hang out with my family and friends in my hometown. You’ve hardly spent any time with them.”
He sighed. “I know and I understand it’s important to you.”
“But,” she prompted, hearing it in his voice. It made her feel even angrier.
“That’s all your past,” he said. “I’m more interested in our future.”
Daniel slid his hand down her left arm until he could raise her hand up. She glanced down at the large square cut diamond sitting on a platinum band studded with smaller diamonds on her ring finger. Her heart melted a bit and she smiled softly. “Our future,” she repeated.
“A future that will be even brighter if I nail this design,” he said, letting go of her hand as he motioned to his drawing. He gave her an earnest look as he continued: “And that’s why I need to stay here so I can work on it. I can’t afford to be distracted right now.”
Her ire rose again and she pulled her hand from his grasp. “My friends would just be distractions?”
“You know what I mean,” he said.
“No,” she replied, crossing her arms as she glared at him. “I don’t. Please enlighten me.”
Daniel sighed, carefully reaching out to rest his hands on her arms. “I meant that I would have way too much fun with you and your friends that I wouldn’t want to ever go back to our room to work. And I have some tight deadlines I need to hit, so I would either not hit them or have to lock myself in our room and not spend any time with anyone.”
“Oh,” she said, her anger dissipating a bit. She should’ve known he had a good reason for what he said. Lowering her arms, she leaned closer to him as she said: “You should’ve started with that.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t want to spend time with your friends or that I didn’t care about them. I do. It’s just now isn’t a very good time.”
She nodded, disappointed but more understanding. “I get it. I’m going to miss you.”
“I’m going to miss you too,” he said, hugging her. “This will be our first Christmas apart.”
The lump returned to Regina’s throat as she realized he was right. She tried to swallow past it. “Do you think you could sneak up to Maine for Christmas?”
“I’m afraid not,” he said, shaking his head. “I wish I could but it just wouldn’t be feasible. Not for what would just be a night. Maybe two—but that would be pushing it. I pretty much need to be in the office on the twenty-sixth.”
“Then what are you going to do on Christmas?” she asked, her heart hurting at the thought that he would be alone.
He shrugged. “Honestly? Probably working. I’ll probably order Chinese or something.”
“That sounds sad,” she told him. “It’s Christmas. You shouldn’t be alone. Why don’t I call Kathryn and tell her there’s been a change of plans so you’ll be coming to dinner?”
“I guess,” he said hesitantly. “But I really need to get this done. It’ll probably be best if I just stayed home and worked.”
Regina pressed her lips together, knowing that he was not big on celebrating Christmas and that he had described his ideal way to spend the day. Still, she pressed on as she rubbed his arm. “Look, if we can’t be together on Christmas, I will feel better if I know you’re with friends just like I will be.”
He relaxed a bit and she knew his resolve was melting when he gave her a small smile. “Okay. If it will make you feel better, you can call Kathryn and tell her I can come.”
“Thank you,” she said, kissing his cheek. “I’ll call her in the morning.”
She stepped back, crossing her arms as she gave him a stern look. “Have you eaten? Or did you come straight home and start working?”
His sheepish grin finally emerged. “I wanted to wait for you and figured I’d get some work done while doing that.”
“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What do you want?”
“I figured we could just order from the sushi place down the street. They’re usually quick,” he replied, taking her hand as they left his office.
She frowned. “Are you sure? I could try to cook something quick. Maybe try one of Glinda Goode’s twenty-minute meals? It would take less time than delivery.”
Daniel paused where their foyer exited out into their living room, gently rubbing her arms. “You’ve had a stressful, emotional day at work. Do you really want to cook?”
His tone implied that it was a rhetorical question. That of course she didn’t want to do that—that no one would want to do that. Rather, they would want to lay on the couch and put up their feet until it came time to answer the door for the delivery person. She had to admit it did sound nice. And she would be able to get some work done in that twenty minutes.
“You’re right,” she admitted.
“I’ll place the order,” he told her, pulling out his phone. “You want your usual?”
Regina nodded. “Yes, please. I’m going to go change.”
“Okay, darling,” he replied, kissing her cheek. “I’m going to get a little bit more drawn on my building.”
He moved back toward his office, head bent over his phone as he placed their usual orders. Regina sighed as she headed into their spacious living room. She navigated around the glass coffee table that sat between two black armchairs and in front of the matching black couch. Two tall lamps rested in corners, lighting up the room. As she headed toward the door that led to the master bedroom, she passed the small artificial Christmas tree she and Daniel had set up earlier that week. It came already decorated with white lights and matching white and black ornaments, looking very sleek and chic. They also had two stockings over the fake fireplace against the wall separating the living room from their kitchen. Both were black and white rather than red and white. There were no other decorations and everything fit well with their décor.
Regina, though, always wanted to do more. She longed to really decorate their apartment for the holiday—especially given how tall and wide their windows were. Lights would look amazing around the edges on them and she knew she could create little scenes in each window, even if no one else could really see them. It would be enough that she could and each year, she stood in the decoration aisle of the local story to admire the decorations. Yet she never purchased any, knowing that in the end, there would be no time to properly decorate as she and Daniel were often too busy. The only reason the tree went up at all was because they just had to take it out of the box and plug it in—just five minutes of set up, if that. And the stockings just hung on hooks they never took down from the fireplace, so it took them even less time.
She missed having a real tree, though, and she missed spending a good chunk of time decorating it with ornaments that held lots of memories and special meaning attached to them. While she got to play Christmas music on Christmas morning, she wished she could play it all the time and dance around the apartment while either decorating or wrapping presents. Or while making every type of Christmas cookie known to man, the apartment smelling like gingerbread or peppermint. Instead, she usually listened to it through her headphones while working as already wrapped presents and factory-made goodies were delivered to their door.
It was another reason why she was looking forward to spending Christmas in Storybrooke—the whole town loved the holiday and pulled out all the stops to celebrate it. There would be real Christmas trees that were properly decorated and music everywhere. And she knew Granny would keep them all well-stocked with cookies, pies, hot chocolate and eggnog—while Ruby would be stocked with all types of spirits to add to the latter two. She had wanted Daniel to experience that kind of Christmas at least once—even if she knew it wouldn’t change his feelings about the holidays, they would at least have the memories.
Most of all, they would have time. It was a precious commodity here in New York. So she was looking forward to just being able to spend time with him without work interrupting them. Maybe they could finally start planning their own wedding…
“Regina? Dinner’s here,” Daniel called out.
She felt as if she was just jolted from a dream. Blinking a few times, she realized she had just been standing in her bedroom and hadn’t moved. She had stopped to think but hadn’t really had the time to do so. One day, she would reach the point in her life where she would have all the time in the world to do whatever she wanted.
Regina realized she couldn’t afford to dawdle much longer. Clearing her throat, she called out: “I’ll be right there.”
Quickly changing, she headed out to their dining room. Daniel set the table and pulled their food out of the bag it had been delivered in. She continued to the kitchen, pulling the stopper from the bottle of wine they had opened the other day. Pouring two glasses, she returned to the table and handed him one. He thanked her and they sat down together to eat.
They discussed their new vacation plans as they ate and sipped their wine. Regina hoped her disappointment didn’t show. Daniel’s excitement over landing the Belfrey deal didn’t seemed dimmed so she guessed he didn’t pick up on it. He told her that they would have all the time in the world after her won that and got promoted to partner at his firm. Regina listened and nodded, hoping it would all come to pass as he said and they would finally have that most precious commodity.
Time.
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Redamancy, Chapter 7 - Lee Jihoon
Pairing: Husband!JihoonxReader
Genre: Angst, the tiniest amount of Fluff
Chapter: one | two | three | four | five | six | SEVEN | eight | nine | end | epilogue |
Word Count: 2.9 K
A/N: I kinda like this one...? Enjoy (?)
Recommended Song: Seventeen - I Don’t Know
--
You have spent the last four days going through every photo album that exists in your house.
Your arm and shoulder are great now, but your head isn’t. And Jihoon knows nothing about any of these. You haven’t had the chance to tell him since he has been going home later and later every night. At first, it was purely out of spite. But when the next day at work Soonyoung had the gut to come at him again, he assumed that you confided in Soonyoung, and he became exceptionally mad.
Only God knows why he’s like that. It’s not like there was a history between you and Soonyoung. It’s just that Soonyoung’s the north to his south. He’s everything someone wanted or wanted to be. Unlike him, Soonyoung’s never been afraid to show his affection and vulnerability, never backed away from confrontation, and he’s never given up on anything he thought worth fighting for.
Which makes Jihoon believes that Soonyoung’s never completely given you up to him. And that after all this time, he’s never stopped loving you.
Jihoon slams his fist on his desk when he repeats Soonyoung comments of disbelief that hinted a soft warning if he doesn’t make you his top priority. The sound of skin and bones hitting the wood shifts in space and becomes the sound of thick photo albums falling from the coffee table on your side. You don’t remember how many times you have gone through that particular album, the one that holds the memory of your wedding day. The two of you are happily captured in most of the frames. There’s a picture where Soonyoung stands on Jihoon’s right, Seungkwan on your left, and Dokyeom and Jeonghan kneeling in front of you, from the mics on their hands you figure they were the emcees. Another where all Seventeen members gather around you and acting as guards. And there’s one of Jihoon standing, looking expectantly at the aisle for your entrance, under the wedding arch. It’s made from baby’s breath and its center point’s characterized by a lily of the valley wreath sticking to a big tree behind it.
You have stared at that picture for too long that your mind wandered to that morning when you woke up. For you, the world was clouded under your medication, but the light in Jihoon’s eyes, it was all too lucid. It was very much like the one you saw on that picture, full of nervous energy and more importantly, hope. But for you, hope has become such a frail thing. It keeps on thinning to nonexistent every time you reach the end page of the album.
You grab for your hair as you let out a growl that fades into a whimper. No picture in your house is able to ignite the memory hidden somewhere in your head. And looking through frozen moments that you don’t remember existing feels like a punishment. It only makes you feel like you are barred away from the world and that the universe is conspiring against you. So you scream. Then you remember the phone calls from your kids these last two days. And it occurs to you that there’s a possibility that you won’t ever remember them again or their value in your life. And you don’t know what’s going to happen then. And you scream. Again and again, until your throat itches and your scream comes out as a cough.
After one long hour of staring at the rings that tie the two of you together, one simple band with a diamond in the middle and another adorning diamonds all around it, and wondering what Jihoon had in mind when he put them back on your limp finger, the melancholy evaporates, settling the remaining desperation left from your scream. And therefore, returns your ability to think and conclude that being locked inside won’t do you any good. So you take your phone from atop the coffee table to call Soonyoung and then pause for a millisecond to smile, realizing that he’s wrong. He’s not an alternative. This time, it is actually him that you want to reach for. Not Seungkwan, nor Jihoon.
“Hello? Y/n? Everything’s okay?” Soonyoung’s worry is expressed perfectly by his questions, and somehow this draws out a laugh out of you. “Y/n? Hey, why’re you laughing?”
“Nothing. It’s just amusing how you constantly think that something’s happening to me.”
“Well, I’m just... Worry shows that you care, you know?”
“Right, right. Let’s go to Han River again,” you say, going straight to the point.
“Huh? Another flashback?”
“No. More like trying to get another one or two. So, what do you say?”
There is a short pause on Soonyoung’s end before he sighs. “I’m so sorry, Y/n. I need to perfect a choreo before I show it to the lil’ boys. They’ll be having a mini concert soon, and there’s this remix version that”—he lets out another sigh—“I really want to help you. But I’m sorry. Really.”
“Ah.”
Soonyoung notices that the excitement has gone from your voice, so he asks, “Can’t Jihoon go with you? I can go to his studio now and—“
“Soonyoung, no.” Your voice is stern when you cut him, knowing well enough what’s that going to cost you.
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry. I mean Seungkwan. Seungkwan, yeah. Can’t he go?”
“I don’t know,” you mumble.
“Wh- How? You… Wait, you haven’t called him?”
“No, Soonyoung. I wanted to go with you.”
“Oh? Shit. God! I’m- I’m so sorry. I complained about being an alternative, but now when you call me first, I… I can’t come. I’m so, so sorry, Y/n. Wait a sec, I’ll call the manager. Maybe—“
“Soonie, it’s okay. You don’t have to.”
“Y/n… Once again, I’m sorry. Call and ask Seungkwan, okay? If he can’t go, let me know.”
You didn’t call Seungkwan. You called a taxi instead. That was how you ended up sitting in front of the Big Tree alone at eight in the evening, holding a posy of white lily of the valley that you bought from a nearby florist.
It’s not completely white, the flower. You notice the tinge of pink that grows warmer by the minute, and as the heat reaches your cheek, you learn that already, the sun is burning low on the horizon. The picture of Jihoon and the dusk on his cheek are painted anew on your brain, and a sad smile tugs on your lips. You are tired. One second you are the sun, alive, high on the sky, and the next you are the moon, dead and cold without your sole source of life.
You raise your right hand to the front of your face, and as light bounces from the diamonds on your rings, you sigh. You had come with the determination to remember, but now you’re charged with the powerful urge to forget. You are a different person for Jihoon. You are not the person he expected to wake up in the lieu of his wife. You are just an invalid. Just someone who’s stuck in the past. In the memory of a different Jihoon.
As Jihoon bursts through your thought, flowers clutched a little too hard in his hand, you throw away the replica that’s in yours.
“You don’t like it?” Jihoon picks up at the end of your memory clip, and you want nothing but for him to shut up.
“I know that this is nothing like the hill that you found, um, your Magic Shop, you called it?” He peeks at you then continues after your confirmation, “It’s… There’s a lot of crowds since we’re in the Han River area. I’m sorry. I should’ve looked for something better.”
“It’s okay, Ji. This is more than enough. I don’t think I would need something like this anymore. I’ve promised that I won’t run again, haven’t I?”
Jihoon nods and throws his head back as he sighs. “I’m sorry that you have to lose your place. They shouldn’t have exposed it like that.”
“It’s okay. The hill isn’t mine by law or anything. Besides, it happened a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry that I just show you this now. It’s just… I have to leave for about two years, and I don’t want you to think that you have nowhere to go.” He raises his gaze to meet yours, and it’s a moment too late for him to realize what implication he has made. “No! I mean… N-not that I’m saying I’ve replaced y-your Magic Shop or something. And! Don’t- Don’t get me wrong, I want to, I-“
“Jihoon, shut up,” you cut him with a faux glare before you break into a grin. And when your mirth transforms into something more serene, you whisper to him, “You have been, and you still are.”
But you’re not anymore, you add to the still image of smiling Jihoon.
Your legs suddenly feel weak, and you’re struggling to get up. When you do, you start to walk slowly but purposefully to the only place you know you can go to forget all of your problems, including Jihoon.
Even though running is what your heart set to, this is the only thing you’re capable of doing on your current state. You move your feet forward one step at a time until you see the familiar solar-powered ground lamps forming a walkway that leads you to a garden. One that in spite of its minimum size, you insist on calling majestic. There are meters of yellow lights that you see people use for Christmas weaved around the crown of a big tree to its trunk and crept on the circumference of the ground. They’re beautiful. And you almost laugh at their futile effort to replace the role of the early morning sun. You walk closer to the white and yellow camellia, the reason for planting them rings loudly in your head. Waiting and longing, that’s what each of them symbolizes.
It surprises you that someone takes care of your—this—garden after you left. You stumbled upon this place after you strayed too far away from home. Walking to the direction of the dying sun, something you used to do whenever life or people hit you a tad bit harder than you could take. When you had found this place, it’s just a small hill hiding from the ruckus of a regular city. There’s one big tree near the middle of it—your Big Tree—and bushes and short grass covering random spots on its surface. You had left a small box of instant food and a hammock tied onto the tree’s strongest branch one day on your visit. It was one of your roughest weeks, and you had thought that the Hill would be your last destination if nothing else had worked. But when you returned three days later, and you found your supplies to be intact, you’re sure that no one frequented the Hill as you did. That’s how you claimed the place as your Magic Shop, a place that’s very much alike your Haven.
You started bringing things that would help you for when you took refuge on the Hill. You planted flowers and lamps, and you buried a trunk with books, blankets, and miscellaneous stuff. It became your second home—or your home, per se, as your apartment never really felt like one.
You walk forward near the edge of the hill, looking at the peonies, buttercups, and anemone hepaticas you planted for their beauty. Hanakotoba. If only there’s something for your sense of incompleteness or your tendency to run. That flower then would easily pass as your reincarnation. Now that you think about it, maybe there is something. Maybe you just don’t know what. The way you don’t know whether you’re always running from something or towards something.
The sight of anemone hepaticas in between the rosy peonies and yellow buttercups reminds you of your former obsession with forget-me-not. Both flowers are somewhat similar in color, that’s why with the minimum light from your artificial sun, you have trouble in your search of the latter. As your eyes float around flowers, your head registers the meaning of the blue-purple flowers. It is true love. Or memories. And you’re suddenly enraged by this. You feel mocked to the point where you jump to your knees to inspect each flower in detail, just to find one forget-me-not. You reproach yourself in your head for how stupid you are. Both flowers are distinct. How you cannot point it out is so beyond you. You are talking about your favorite flower here—at least back when you only see lily of the valley for the beauty that it is.
Lily of the valley, you mouth as you fall into a sitting position, your gaze is no longer combing through the shrubs and flowers. It was until lily of the valley. It was until Jihoon.
Forget-me-not, true love. Memories. White camellia, waiting. Yellow camellia, longing. Primrose, desperation. Lily of the valley, the promise of happiness.
Your head spins as you recall every flower and its meaning, creating a new set of loop for your brain to play.
Memories. Waiting. Desperation. True love. Longing. Promise of happiness. Longing. True love. Waiting. Memories. Desperation. Promise of happiness. Promise of happiness, promise of happiness, promise of happiness, the word resonating in your ears, followed by the dusk on Jihoon’s cheek on your vision.
The first sob that escapes you sounds a lot more like a whimper, your hand finds its way to your chest, clutching it hard as you close your eyes.
“Y/n.”
Your eyes are open in a snap, and you turn your body around, facing the sturdy trunk of a tree you once called a house.
“I have written my vows and revised it until I fell asleep on my desk in the studio. I thought it would be the same as songwriting, but it’s not, Y/n. I found that it’s hard to find the right word, and I don’t know whose idea it was to think that abandoning that vows scratch is a smart move.” You can’t help but chuckle along with the audience at the small snicker that comes out of Soonyoung who is standing next to Jihoon, signaling that it’s indeed his idea. You pull your lower lip between your teeth and tighten your hold on Jihoon’s hands as you focus your attention back to his words.
“But as I stand here in front of you, I am back at Pledis’ lobby, just walking with tears in my eyes like a lost child. I didn’t bump into you, Y/n. I was looking for you. And you, without any words, dropped those lunch packages for us and brought me to your arms. When I let go and apologized, you said to me, ‘Don’t. Cry.’ And I was so confused, but you’re not finished. ‘You have a lot of tears, Jihoon. Cry all of them out. Come to me and cry. And let me wipe them clean. That way I know you’ll be okay.’
“And I cried some more in your embrace. I cried because I couldn’t see myself standing beside you, couldn’t see you standing beside me for as long as I want.” You shake your head a few times at this, tears already starting to fall down your cheeks. ”I want all of you, Y/n, the broken and intact pieces of you. I want you to make good of those words you said to me, and I want you to allow me to abide by my promise to you.”
You nod frantically. He’s taken too long with his vows, and you just want to dive into his arm and close your lips around him to shut him up. But then you and the audience laugh, for Jihoon continuous, “Don’t agree just yet, I am asking your whole lifetime, Y/n. I can’t accept months, years, or anything but that.” He pauses, and you think he’s done but no. He clears his throat once before he inhales. “Y/n, I love you. I can be a total doofus sometimes, like saying that you can’t agree just yet. Please, don’t heed that. You can’t not agree. Because I love you. And I need you. And I need to stop talking because I’m embarrassing myself. But that’s okay. Because I love you. And I’ll always do.”
The sound that forces its way out of your throat is full of dire. It is so raw that your body shudders. Your cry of anguish is amplified in the otherwise silent night. You grab for your hair and pull at it, face wet from your tears and mouth moving restlessly to mold your hurt into words and the air into oxygen. But all of these halts abruptly when your hair is caught on the diamond of your engagement ring. Your attention shifts to the ring on top of it, your wedding band.
A word that resembles nothing of its consisting alphabets shrieks out of your body as you take out those two rings from your finger and throw it away as you did your posy, the action killing the last fire within you. And you collapse in a whimper.
Liar.
You gather your feeble limbs to your chest and let your head fall on your knees, back to crying in silent, as you usually do.
When the wind becomes harsher to your skin you reach for your phone in your pocket. Your voice is frail and defeated when you start, “Seungkwan…”
--
Tag list: @thatfangurltho
A/N: I didn’t go through a detailed research of whether the mentioned flowers could actually grow in the place that I used or not, so...
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[fic] Deck The Halls (Hancock)
Happy Holidays!
Here’s @dragonie ‘s submission for @noneedforsuspicion featuring Hancock!
Characters: Hancock, Kent, KL-E-0, Dr Amari, Maccready, Daisy
Summary: Written for the following prompt: “I would like someone's depiction of a winter holiday in Goodneighbor, featuring our favorite Mayor Hancock. No sole survivor necessary - I just wanna see the residents of Goodneighbor celebrating sometime during the winter.“
Work Count: 3,222
Rating: Safe For Work
“There.”
Gnarled hands meticulously placed the wreath into position, shifting it until it sat just so.
“Nice.” Mayor Hancock gave a low whistle as he admired Kent’s work. “Pretty as a picture.”
“You really think so?” Kent smiled bashfully down from the stepladder. “I know it’s not a patch on the ones we had before the war, but…”
It meant a lot to him, Hancock knew. He’d seen him, these past few weeks, creaky fingers weaving scraggly wasteland conifer into rings, carefully handling tattered ribbons, baubles of bent and painted scrap, as if they were delicate treasures. His eyes shone, and that was a rare enough thing in these wastes. Lotta people drifted into Goodneighbor with hollow eyes, looking for Jet or booze or Irma’s pods or whatever took the edge off life for a time; was a breath of fresh air to see a man made so happy by a couple of twigs and some dolled-up hunks of metal.
“‘Course. Really brightens up the old place.” He grinned, and looked Kent up and down, nice and slow. “Ain’t just talking about the leaves, either.”
He could’ve sworn he saw a flush creep across Kent’s scarred cheeks as the ghoul carefully stepped down from the ladder.
“You really think they’ll come?” he asked, and Hancock caught the uncertainty in his eyes, the worry conflicting with hope. “I mean, I know it won’t mean much to them, except maybe Daisy, but, y’know… I-I was just thinking…” He trailed off.
“Sure they will,” Hancock reassured him, clapping a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Goodneighbor don’t usually pass up an excuse for a party.” He paused, and added: “Come to think of it, we don’t usually wait for an excuse in the first place. And you’re handin’ one out with a pretty little bow on it. It’ll be fine, Kent. You’ll see.”
“Thanks, Hancock,” Kent flashed him a little smile. “It really means a lot to me.”
“Anytime, love.” Hancock returned fire with his most charming grin (and that was pretty damn charming, if he did say so himself), and gave Kent a peck on his wrinkled cheek before drawing away. “Now, let’s get this party started, hey? Guests are gonna be here any minute, and I got a reputation to maintain as the best goddamn host in town.”
***
Snow was falling in Boston, the Commonwealth caught in the grips of a nuclear winter. Hancock had to admit, it looked kinda pretty in the dim glow of the lights strung over the square, even if it did end up as a layer of radioactive slurry on the cracked cobblestones.
Kent whistled happily as he busied himself with dinner, scurrying back and forth between pots at a makeshift cooking station in Hancock’s quarters. Hancock laid out a festive spread of Bobrov’s and Day Tripper - because this was a Goodneighbor party, after all - and couldn’t help but smile at how cheerful the man seemed, for once.
Kent had always looked a little more down around this time of winter, Hancock had noted through the years, spent most of his days cooped up in Irma’s memory pods. He’d always been a little curious, and this year they had a good kinda thing going on, so he decided to ask Kent about it.
Kent was hesitant to speak, at first; he always was, when it came to the things important to him, as if he half expected the listener to mock him for his thoughts. A little bit of patience got him to open up, though, and Hancock finally found out the reason behind Kent’s funk.
He missed Christmases with his family, before the war, he said; the whole big Irish clan huddled around a table, eating something called a “ham” (presumably, thought Hancock, not the taciturn bouncer of the Third Rail), drinking brandy and putting gifts under a tree and generally having a hell of a time. It had been one of the highlights of the year, for him, right up there with the start of a new season of the Silver Shroud. But now the end of December just felt lonely, a reminded of all that he’d lost when the world got blown to shit. People in the Wasteland didn’t mark the old holidays so much; seemed like after the bombs, folks were too busy just struggling to survive to celebrate anything, so things got lost. Goodneighbor threw one hell of a New Year’s bash - at least, when there was anyone around sober enough to remember what the date was - but that was about the only Old World party they recognised. Wasteland had made its own since then, ‘course, but as far as Kent was concerned, it just wasn’t the same.
So Hancock had had an idea. Goodneighbor was almost kinda like a family anyway - a big, dysfunctional family that always bogarted the Jet, but hell, he’d take it over his own asshole of a brother any day - so why not cheer Kent up with a little wintertime shindig of their own? Seemed to be working, too; Kent had been actually peppy these past few weeks, planning food, decorations, presents, with a kind of spring in his step that, on anyone else, would make Hancock think he’d been into the Day Tripper.
Daisy was the first to arrive, bearing a parcel wrapped up in old copies of the Boston Bugle and tied with a frayed blue ribbon. As another pre-war ghoul, she was one of the oldest residents of Goodneighbor, and one of the few who had any more than a vague idea of what Christmas was. A Diamond City mainstay until his goddamn brother had kicked all the ghouls out, Daisy was an old friend. She had been the one who calmed him down and taught him what to expect when his own skin started peeling off and his hair falling out in clumps. He greeted her now with a broad grin and a quick hug around the shoulders.
“Thanks for doing this, Hancock. Means a lot to Kent, I know.” A smile passed across her face as she stepped inside the Old State House, taking in all the decorations which Kent had so lovingly crafted. At pride of place in the old hall was a raggedy old pine tree, decorated with strings of lights and whatever shiny things Kent and Hancock could get their hands on - old, scavenged baubles and ornaments; bits of aluminium foil shredded into makeshift tinsel; even a handful of spit-polished caps hanging in the upper branches where no one (not naming any names) (MacCready) could pocket them. Atop the tree was a star long snapped off an old neon sign, some chain diner in the ruins around them. Daisy looked the tree up and down, a faraway gleam in her eye. “Huh. Haven’t had a Christmas since my husband passed, you know. Didn’t feel right, without him there, and then the war happened and no one felt much like celebrating. Takes me back, I gotta say.” She placed the present carefully under the tree, and gave Hancock a wry look. “You’re a regular old Saint Nick, Hancock.”
“Heh,” Hancock chuckled as he pried the cap off of a Gwinnett Pale with the buckle of his boot. “Probably the first time anyone called me a saint.”
A cheerful cry of “Hancock, you old bastard, where’s the booze already!” erupted from the door, and Daisy laughed.
“Well, Mayor,” she waved him off with a smile. “Your adoring public awaits. I’ll see if Kent needs a hand with anything. You go press the flesh, or whatever it is you politicians do.”
“Get stinkin’ drunk, mostly.” Hancock waggled what was left of his eyebrows before heading to the door to greet the family.
***
The party was just getting into a good little swing - helped in no small amount by Fred Allen’s liberal stocks of “party favours” - when Kent gave a hesitant rap on the door jamb. Barely audible above the chatter, but Hancock noticed anyway, and waved him over.
“Erm…” Kent looked uncertainly at the increasingly rowdy crowd, and cleared his throat. “Dinner’s all ready, everyone! So, ah… come with me and, well, eat up!”
The hubbub did not even waver. Hancock saw Kent’s shoulders sag; he looked dispirited, and worse, unsurprised. No, this would not do at all. He took a gun from the hands of an on-duty Neighbourhood Watcher, climbed a few steps up the spiral staircase, and fired off a short burst into the brickwork. The talking cut short, and all eyes fell upon him, though among them, only Kent actually looked shocked. He didn’t go to enough of the parties, Hancock thought; poor guy didn’t know the Goodneighbor way of getting a room’s attention.
“All right,” he tossed the gun back to the guardsman, who caught it after some fumbling. “Listen up, you lot. Kent here’s cooked us all a great fucking dinner, so we’re gonna eat like kings tonight, ya hear? Follow me!” He was met by a round of cheers and laughter (and one smartass comment from MacCready about “home-cooking from Hancock’s hubby”) as he led the people up the staircase.
Kent slipped through the crowd of merrymakers to Hancock’s side. On some sudden, sappy impulse, Hancock took the man’s hand in his own. Kent started at first at the sudden, public contact, but smiled and did not pull away.
“They really respect you, huh?” Kent sounded almost wistful in this.
Hancock shrugged.
“They’re good folks. Just gotta know how to talk to ‘em.”
Hancock’s nose may have fallen off a few years back, but he still had a sense of smell. Normally, in Goodneighbor, this was not an asset. Tonight, however, he was goddamn thankful, because there were some delicious fucking scents wafting from his living room. Kent detached from him to straighten up the plates, looking bashful - not that he had any reason to be. Hancock knew the man liked to cook, when he could muster up the enthusiasm for it, but damn if he hadn’t outdone himself tonight. Each plate held steaming slices of roast Brahmin, heaped with generous dollops of some complex but delicious sauce Kent had been experimenting with the past few weeks (Hancock, of course, has been all too eager to volunteer as a taste-tester). Beside the meat was a serve of roasted carrots and tatoes and a buttered cob of corn. In the middle of the table was a stack of bowls and a tureen of rich tato soup, and two neatly-arranged rows of Gwinnett and Nuka. All in all, it was the kind of spread that would have Wellingham back in Diamond City twitching his multipurpose appendages in envy.
The Goodneighbor lot fell on the meal like a yao guai on a juicy radstag, giving Kent a few words of thanks and appreciative back-pats on their way. He honestly deserved more, in Hancock’s admittedly biased opinion, but his eyes shone nonetheless at the sight of everyone gathered here, on this important day for him, happily eating his food. This might be what he missed most, Hancock reckoned; Kent didn’t mingle with the others nearly enough, and he’d always thought he must be kinda lonely, manning that radio station the whole day. It was what prompted Hancock to reach out to him in the first place - “a mother hen,” Daisy once called him with a laugh, ‘cause he didn’t like to see people looking down - and that, he reckoned, had been one of the better decisions of his life.
They laughed and chatted as they feasted. (Well, most of them did, at any rate. “Oh, yes, KL-E-0, please eat with us, with your fleshy human mouth!” grumbled the dulcet tones of an Assaultron.) The plates were nearly empty and the tureen nearly drained when Kent stood up at the head of the table, a big smile on his crinkled face.
“I’d-I’d just like to say,” he began meekly. “That it really means a lot to me that-”
Once again, though, the gathered crowd was so absorbed in their conversations and their jokes (and one very intense game of dice that appeared to be going on in the far corner) that few faces even turned to heed him. Kent opened his mouth, once, and then sat down, looking rather disappointed. Before Hancock could call them to attention again, though, Daisy scowled and slammed her bottle of beer down hard on the table, causing a clatter of cutlery (along with a spray of suds over an unfortunate ghoul in a yellow trenchcoat, whose name Hancock had never quite caught).
“Hey, Kent’s trying to thank you all, here!” Daisy admonished the gathered crowd. “He’s gone to a lot of trouble for this; least you could do is hear the man out.”
There were a few mutters, at this; MacCready, at least, had the grace to look a bit guilty.
“Thanks, Daisy,” Kent said uneasily. “But it’s okay, really, I don’t need-”
“Just ‘aving a good time here, Dais,” Charlie swivelled one eyestalk away from his dice game. “No bloody call to be rude about it.”
“I don’t know, Charlie,” Magnolia turned from her conversation with Ham. “I think we should listen to the man. He’s been such a dear.” She fixed Kent with a stunning smile, which he returned gratefully.
“If it’s about the Silver Shroud,” Fahrenheit snorted as she showed KL-E-0 her new gun. “I’ve heard it already.”
“Hey, Fahrenheit.” Hancock’s voice was uncharacteristically stern as he addressed his bodyguard. “Don’t be like that.”
“No, no,” Kent looked as if he wanted to slip between the floorboards and disappear. “It’s really- you don’t need to-”
“Sorry we’re late, sweeties!” A familiar voice cut through what might have been a brewing argument as Irma swept through the doorway, resplendently dressed as usual. Amari followed her close behind, carefully carrying a large tray of pitchers.
“What you got there, Doc?” MacCready eyed the milky-looking drinks with interest.
“Eggnog.” The good doctor set the tray down carefully on the table. “A traditional Christmas beverage, or so it seems. With Mr. Connolly’s help, we have tried to match the recipe as closely as possible to that in his memories.”
“Sorry we couldn’t get it exact, sugar,” Irma shrugged off her fluffy winter coat with an apologetic glance at Kent. “I’m sure Deathclaw eggs will do just as well for taste, though, and go an awful lot further besides.”
“And why,” Bobbi leaned back in her chair and tapped her cigarette without bothering to find an ashtray, the ashes falling to the ancient carpet to mingle with all the other stains. “Do we want to slurp down the contents of a Deathclaw nest?”
“Because,” Amari replied shortly. “It’s got a medically inadvisable amount of brandy in it.” This was met with approving nods and whistles from the Goodneighbor crowd.
“Thank you, Dr. Amari, Irma,” Kent nodded to the pair, smiling with watery eyes. “You’re always so good to me.”
“All right, everybody!” Hancock hoisted a glass in one hand, a pitcher in the other. “These two lovely ladies are being so kind as to bring the booze, so everyone better grab a glass and drink the hell up!”
The cheers from this announcement echoed through the Old State House as the people moved as one towards the prospect of a free alcoholic beverage.
***
The booze (and chems) flowed freely as the night wore on, and soon all were merry, or at least as merry as programming and personality allowed. Magnolia led the crowd in all the carols Daisy and Kent could remember, and when those ran out, they switched smoothly to some popular pre-war hits, the more risque the better. Kent, emboldened by drink or excitement or both, clinked a spoon against a glass for attention.
“I just wanna say,” he began, his smile broad, his face flushed. “It really means a lot to me that you all came here tonight-”
“Aw, don’t mention it, Kent, you big sap,” MacCready grinned, Bobrov’s Best spilling from his shotglass as he swayed unsteadily. A few whoops and whistles erupted from the inebriated townsfolk.
“It’s true, though.” Kent’s eyes looked a little dewy. “Having everyone gathered here today, sharing this with me, really… really takes me back. It’s been so long since- oh, god…”
He broke off as the tears pooled in his eyes and dripped down his craggy face, eliciting scattered clapping, several cheers, and one derisive snort (probably Bobbi) from the peanut gallery. Hancock wrapped an arm around the man’s shoulders and gave him a comforting squeeze as Irma produced a lacy handkerchief from somewhere deep in the voluminous sleeves in her dress. Kent wiped his eyes dry and blew his nosehole to a soothing litany of “There, there”s before handing it back to her with an apologetic look.
“Sorry about that.” His face brightened up, and he clapped his hands together. “Now, how about we exchange some presents? It’s not really Christmas until there’s wrapping paper all over the floor.”
“You heard the man,” Hancock called to the crowd. “Get your asses down to the tree!”
Like anything else in Goodneighbor, there was no order to the gift-giving. Some people had brought presents for all their friends, some only for one person, and some had not bothered at all. Fahrenheit gave KL-E-0 a hug and a peck on the metal cheek as she unwrapped a shiny new tri-barrel minigun mod for Ashmaker. MacCready sobbed drunkenly into Daisy’s shoulder as he clutched a patched-up toy robot for Duncan. Irma smiled knowingly as Amari gasped at the sight of her very own neuroisotropic cerebrospatulator.
“I know it’s not much, but-” Kent pressed a parcel into Hancock’s hands. The paper was crinkled and the bow was crooked but damn if it didn’t look beautiful. What was inside wasn’t too shabby either; an intact bottle of a damn fine single malt, one that would’ve cost a pretty penny even before the bombs blew the distilleries to hell.
“It’s perfect, love,” he grinned. “Here, I got you something too.”
“Oh, but you’ve already-” Kent’s protest was cut short as Hancock proffered his present with a flourish. Kent unwrapped it, and was rendered speechless by its contents - a collection of comics featuring the Silver Shroud, many of which had been missing from Kent’s own collection.
“Paid some mercs to go combing the ruins,” Hancock said. “Ain’t all of them, but this is what they came up with.”
Kent looked up.
“I- Thank you, Hancock. Thank you so much, for everything. I really can’t ever repay you.”
Hancock hooked an arm around Kent’s shoulder.
“Hell, Kent, you just keep bein’ you, and that’s enough for me. Hey, everyone!” He snatched a half-empty bottle of rum from a counter and lifted it up, calling out to his gathered friends. “To Kent!”
“To Kent!” Goodneighbor cheered back, and held up their own bottles and glasses and Jet inhalers, and the hall was once more filled with noise and laughter. Hancock turned to look at Kent, and found that Kent was already looking at him.
“Thank you, Hancock,” Kent’s voice was soft and full of emotion. He leaned in, and pressed his lips to Hancock’s, and the party continued long into the night.
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Sabbat Information
Yule- 21. Dezember - Holly Jolly Christmas Celtic Painting Traditional Colors: Blues Silvers Whites Reds Green Gold Symbolism: rebirth, transformation, new life, light, new beginnings, giving, merriment Symbols: evergreens, holly, mistletoe, poinsettias, lights, Yule Log, wreaths, bells, gifts, stars, sun, snow, ornaments, garland, Santa Claus, reindeer Colors: red, green, gold, silver, white Food and Drink: wassail, cider, nuts, apples, pears, fruitcake, cookies, eggnog, mulled wine, ham, turkey, lamb, breads, cakes Herbs: holly, mistletoe, pine, oak, fir, birch, hazel, sandalwood, ivy, comfrey, myrrh, frankincense, wintergreen, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, elder, spruce, cedar, balsam, thistle, sage, juniper, moss, bay, rosemary Deities: Mary, Holda, Isis, Ops, Hertha, Frey, Eve, Saturn, Cronos, Horus/Ra, Balder, Santa Claus, Odin, Holly King, Old Man Winter Crystals and Gemstones: cat's eye, diamond, ruby, garnet, bloodstone, clear quartz, pearls, green tourmaline, citrine, alexandrite Animals: bull, goat, reindeer, stag, wren, robin, elf Magic: Being the time of rebirth, this is a great time to remove anything that holds us back and to sow the seeds for the upcoming year. Success spells are best cast this evening. Many people also perform blessings, not only for themselves and their families, but for others as well. Cleansing your home and altar and banishing negativity can also be done this night. Whatever you do, make sure your heart is filled with peace, love, and joy and work magic to bring merriment to others. Please note this is not a complete list but a brief overview of symbols, colors, herbs, deities, and the like. _______ Imbolc - 2. February - "Life is Universal" pronounced "Ee-molc" Use some soft white polyfill (the snowy looking fabric) for around the altar to represent the snow. Symbolism: rebirth, purity, new life, light, new beginnings, warmth, growth, renewal, rejuvenation Symbols: candles, daffodils, lanterns, acorns, fire, Brigid's cross, acorns, brooms, corn dolls, sun wheels Colors: white, silver, pale yellow, red, pink, orange, lavender, light green Food and Drink: bread, cake, milk, spiced wine, cheese, yogurt, herbal teas, fish, white meat, honey cake, muffins Herbs: angelica, basil, bay, blackberry, chamomile, rosemary, heather, rowan, dill, myrrh, willow Deities: Cernunnos, Eros, Osiris, Pan, Athena, Bast, Blaize, Brigid, Ceres, Cerridwen, Venus, Gaia, Demeter, Hestia, Vesta, Cupid Crystals and Gemstones: amethyst, bloodstone, ruby, turquoise, garnet, onyx Animals: groundhog, bear, ewe, lamb, stag, robin, owl, dragons, phoenix Magic: This is the time of awakening as the Wheel turns toward spring. Out with the old and in with the new. Cleansing magic, home blessings, divination, initiation rituals, fertility magic, and self-discovery rituals are perfect for this Sabbat. Rid your home of stale energy left over from the cold winter. Light candles and hold a bonfire to call forth the Sun and honor the Earth. Search for signs foretelling of spring (think Groundhog's Day). Please note this is not a complete list but a brief overview of symbols, colors, herbs, deities, and the like. _______ Ostara on 21. March - Butterfly Triquetra Symbolism: rebirth, new life, new beginnings, resurrection, fertility, balance, youth Symbols: rabbits, bunnies, eggs, chicks, daffodils, tulips, baskets, sprouts, lambs, ribbons, butterflies, bees Colors: pastel green, yellow, and pink, gold, grass green, robin's egg blue, red Food and Drink: hard-boiled eggs, devilled eggs, honey cakes, dairy, leafy green vegetables, flower dishes, sprouts, fish, hot cross buns, sweet breads, milk, chocolate, jelly beans/eggs, lemonade, fresh fruit Herbs: acorn, celandine, crocus, daffodil, dogwood, Easter lily, ginger, hyssop, linden, honeysuckle, iris, jasmine, narcissus, peony, rose, violets, woodruff, forsythia, spring flowers Deities: Eostre, Ostara, Aphrodite, Athena, Cybele, Gaia, Isis, Persephone, Venus, Maiden, Pan, Cernunnous, Green Man, Adonis, Mars, Osiris, Thoth Crystals and Gemstones: amethyst, aquamarine, rose quartz, moonstone, bloodstone, red jasper Animals: rabbits, hares, chicks, robins, lambs, snakes, unicorns, dragons Magic: Ostara is the Sabbat of new beginnings and life. Fertility magic (especially through the use of eggs) and garden and seed blessings are commonly performed during this time. Use this Sabbat to perform magic to break away barriers, start new projects or inventions, and breathe new life into your home and garden. This is also a great time to celebrate balance as day and night are equal on this day. Color eggs to attract different things such as love, fertility, wealth, and prosperity. Please note this is not a complete list but a brief overview of symbols, colors, herbs, deities, and the like. _______ Beltane on 1. May- Celt at Arms Painting Fire can be used in form of candles Symbols: Eggs; Flowers; Chalice; May Pole; Butter churn; Chaplet; Baskets; Crossroads; Strings of beads; Ribbons Color Correspondences : Greens, yellows, reds, purples, blues Food and Drink Correspondences : all red fruits, green salads, red or pink wine punch, round oatmeal or barley cakes, dairy foods Herbs: almond, angelica, ash tree, bluebells, cinquefoil, daisy, frankincense, hawthorn, ivy, lilac, marigold, meadowsweet, primrose, roses, yellow cowslips Deities: Bast, Faunus, Flora, Maia,Aphrodite, Arianrhod, Artemis, Astarte, Venus, Diana, Ariel, Var, Skadi, Sheila-na-Gig, Cybele, Xochiquetzal, Freya, and Rhiannon, Apollo, Bacchus, Bel/Belanos, Cernunnos, Pan, Herne, Faunus, Cupid/Eros, Odin, Orion, Frey, Robin Goodfellow, Puck, and The Great Horned God Crystals and Gemstones: emerald, orange carnelian, sapphire, rose quartz Animals: Swallow, dove, swan, Cats, lynx, leopard, goats, rabbits, and honey bees Mythical beasts associated with Beltane include faeries, Pegasus, satyrs, and giants. _______ Litha- 21. June- Phoenix Sun Wheel Symbolism: life, fire, rebirth, transformation, power, purity Symbols: sun flowers, leaves, sword, spear, sun, God's eye, sun wheels, bonfire, balefires, fire, sun dials, bird feathers, seashells, Colors: red, gold, orange, yellow, white, green, blue Food and Drink: mead, ale, summer fruits and vegetables, strawberries, honey cakes, whipped cream, oranges, lemons, summer squash, honey Herbs: Saint John's Wort, lavender, rose, peony, vervain, mugwort, chamomile, chickweed, chicory, sun flower, lily, thyme, hemp, fennel, nettle, wisteria, rue, fern, heather, oak, yarrow, holly Deities: Ra, Bast, Helios, Oak King, Fortuna, Arinna, and other sun god. Crystals and Gemstones: Lapis, diamond, tiger's eye, emerald, jade, and other green stones Animals: butterflies, wren, horse, stag, robin, cattle, phoenix, dragon, faeries, satyrs Magic: Litha is the time to celebrate the Sun and all that he provides for us. Protection spells and fire magic are great to perform on this night. Make protective amulets to be empowered in the balefire lit on Midsummer's eve. Looking to promote a transformation, a new career, or create a new or strengthen an old relationship? Litha is a great night to perform such magic. Collect herbs, especially St. John's Wort, on the eve of this Sabbat to bring luck and enhance the herbs' power. Renew your wedding vows or just enjoy the time with your friends and family. This is also a great time to communicate with faeries and seek their help if you so wish. Be careful though. Faeries can be tricky. Please note this is not a complete list but a brief overview of symbols, colors, herbs, deities, and the like._______ Lammas (Lughnasadh) on 1. August - Crows in Pumpkin Patch Traditional Colors: Yellows Oranges Reds Browns Greens Symbolism: fruitfulness, reaping, prosperity, abundance, purification, transformation, change, plenty, life, birth Symbols: corn (fresh or dried), corn dolls, sun flowers, wheat stalks, threshing tools such as sickle and scythe, barley, oats, candles, cornucopias, gourds, sun wheels, bread, cauldrons Colors: gold, yellow, orange, light brown, bronze, green Food and Drink: wheat, barley, rye, oats, grains, corn, bread, honey, nuts, berries (especially blackberries), cider, red wine, fresh fruits and vegetables, pies and cobblers, jam, potatoes, cornbread, ale, beer, whiskey, mead, grapes Herbs: heather, goldenrod, peony, clover, yarrow, vervain, myrtle, rose, sunflower, poppy, mushrooms, garlic, onion, basil, apple leaf, hops, marigold, grape vine, ivy, rosemary, rose hips, blackthorn Deities: Lugh, Corn Grandmother, Vulcan, Dagon, Ceres, Isis, Dana, Tammuz, Seelu, Tailltiu Crystals and Gemstones: yellow aventurine, peridot, citrine, tiger's eye, lodestone, golden topaz, moss agate, obsidian, marble, lodestone Animals: roosters, calves, griffins, phoenix, centaurs, pigs Magic: This is a great time for hearth and home magic. Set up protection spells, cleanse the home, honor ancestors, and thank the Earth for her bountiful harvest. Please note this is not a complete list but a brief overview of symbols, colors, herbs, deities, and the like. _______ Mabon - 21. September- Forest of Crows Traditional Colors: Browns Yellows Oranges Reds Symbolism: fruitfulness, reaping, prosperity, abundance, thankfulness, giving, kinship, protection, harmony, balance Symbols: apples, acorns, wine, pine cones, gourds, grapes, grains, dried seeds and leaves, vines, horns, scythes, sickles, squash Colors: red, maroon, gold, brown, yellow, scarlet, purple, blue, violet, indigo, orange, autumn colors Food and Drink: apples, dried fruits, nuts, squash, pomegranates, breads, grains, seeds, potatoes, carrots, onions, wine, grapes, cornbread, beans, mutton, ale, cider Herbs: ferns, honeysuckle, marigold, milkweed, myrrh, pine, rose, sage, tobacco, thistle, wheat, barley, oats, aster, mums, oak, hops, cedar Deities: Mabon, Morgan, Epona, Persephone, Thoth, Thor, The Green Man, Demeter/Ceres, the Muses, the Wicker-man, Bacchus, Dionysus Crystals and Gemstones: yellow agate, lapis lazuli, sapphire Animals: dogs, wolves, goat, stag, blackbird, owls and birds of prey, gnomes, Sphinx Magic: This is a great time for hearth and home magic, especially for placing wards around your home. Working spells to bring harmony and peace to the home are especially powerful on Mabon. Giving thanks to the Earth and celebrating kinship is the theme of this Sabbat, so spend this time giving to others and reflecting on what you have to be thankful for. Please note this is not a complete list but a brief overview of symbols, colors, herbs, deities, and the like. _______ Samhain 31. Oktober- Samhain Painting Traditional Colors: Browns Yellows Oranges Symbolism: death and regeneration, transformation, end of old projects, new beginnings, return, change, rest, success, plenty, knowledge Symbols: skulls, bats, cats, leaves, nuts, seeds, barren trees and branches, pumpkins, cauldron, pentacle, crystal ball, besom or broom, witch's hat, moon, crows/ravens, ghosts, goblins, banshees, candy/caramel apples, chocolate, Jack-o-Lanterns, costumes, Trick-or-Treats, Death, acorns, bones, gourds, scarecrows Colors: black, orange, red, silver, gold, brown, purple, yellow Food and Drink: apples, cider, pork, hazelnuts, pomegranates, pumpkins, potatoes, squash, cranberries, turnips, beats, mugwort tea, ale, mulled wine, pies/cakes for the dead Herbs: apple leaf, almonds, bay leaf, nettle, hemlock, cloves, cinnamon, mandrake root, marigold, mums, mugwort, pine, rosemary, sage, wormwood, tarragon, rue, garlic, ginger, hazelnut, allspice Deities: Hekate, The Crone, Cerridwen, Bast, Persephone, Horned Hunter, Cernnunos, Osiris, Hades, Anubis, Loki, Arawn, Dis, and any other death/underworld god or goddess Crystals and Gemstones: black obsidian, jasper, onyx, bloodstone, smoky quartz, carnelian, Animals: cats, especially black cats, bats, spiders, rats, wolves, snakes, ravens and crows, owls, stags, jackals, scorpions Magic: This is the time to honor the dead. Set up an altar, serve them cakes, and let them know they are not forgotten. If you wish to communicate with deceased friends and family, this is the best time of year. The veil thins the night of Samhain, making communication easy. Do NOT, however, entice spirits, disrespect them, call demons, or perform any other magic that is anything less than respectful. I repeat, don't do it. Samhain is also a great time to practice divination in the form of runes, scrying, tarot, tea readings, etc. Reflect over the previous year and perform blessing spells to ring in the new year. Astral projection and lucid dreaming is also much easier to perform on this night, but remember to be safe, Banishing magic, especially those for bad habits, are especially strong on this night. Please note this is not a complete list but a brief overview of symbols, colors, herbs, deities, and the like. _______
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Excursion to the beautiful iced rocks of Horin-Irgi or Cape Kobyliya Golova on frozen Lake Baikal. Photo: Shutterstock
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Siberia's cold is unfathomable. It wraps its savage fingers around my neck and crushes the tips of my fingers. It grates my lungs with every razor-sharp intake of breath. It freezes my brain so I can no longer comprehend what the Old Believer, an Orthodox priest, is saying. His black cassock is rigid with cold, his beard a cascade of icicles, his words a warm spill promptly vaporised on the chilled air. What on earth possessed us to come to this most infamous of outposts, this far-flung emptiness where people have been sent to die – or to live, improbably – and in this least humane of seasons?
Nine days and more than 5000 kilometres earlier, we're oblivious to what awaits us as we bathe in the weak sunshine that's broken briefly through a snow shower and is casting long shadows and buttery columns along a charming Moscow prospect. The temperature is a mere minus-four degrees – a veritable summer compared to the frozen perdition we will face down the line.
Still, the cold here is impressive. We snap-chill a bottle of wine in the snow that's powdering our hotel windowsill. We blink away whirling snowflakes and wrap scarves around our tender noses while queuing to see Lenin's corpse lying waxy and wan and warmer-than-the-living in his sombre mausoleum. As we walk back from a supermarket one evening, I slip on black ice and am hauled to my feet by two men even as I am falling, even as the contents of my shopping bag are rolling downhill.
Frozen waves at lake Baikal. Photo: Alamy
"Spasibo!" I cry out in response – thank you – and they nod nonchalantly. They are well-practised in the rescue of random ice-trippers, these men.
What are we doing here, in the darkest depths of a Russian winter? Attending to priorities: it's my birthday in early January (a significant one), and to celebrate I'm taking the train from Moscow to Vladivostok. What a pity I wasn't born in June.
I'm joined in my Arctic wanderings by 10 family members – an audacious gang of parents, young adult children and a couple of brave boyfriends (the cold is the least of their worries, I imagine). Swaddled gamely against the extremes, they lug small libraries with which to occupy their minds on this interminable journey, and mental fortitude with which to face off against the infernal cold.
COLDER BY DEGREES
At midnight we board the train at Moscow's Yaroslavsky Railway Station, stopping just long enough in the bitter freeze to acknowledge the monument marking the starting point of the fabled Trans-Siberian railway. The route arcs in a broad south-westerly sweep, traversing 9288 kilometres and seven time zones before terminating in Russia's Far Eastern naval garrison, Vladivostok. It is the longest railway line in the world.
The Ural Mountains are cloaked in darkness when we pull into Yekaterinburg in the early hours of the morning. For 33 hours we've peered out from our compact, four-berth compartments at the uncoiling landscape, at fluorescent cities dimming into canvasses of black ink; at forests glittering with diamond snowflakes; at swathes of farmland gradually solidifying into cities then disintegrating again into empty fields of snow. Overzealous heating has shielded us from an ever-changing climate; we step off the train into an incomprehensible minus-18 degrees.
It's New Year's Eve. Yekaterinburg is lit up like a carnival, the Iset River is a boulevard of ice. The Gosudarstvennyy Akademicheskiy Theatre stands like a baroque wedding cake on a bed of snow. Inside, we queue at the coat racks where patrons throw off heavy swaddling to reveal glamorous frocks forced into hiding by the cold. We join them in jubilantly bravo-ing a performance of The Nutcracker, a Christmas spectacle manifesting onstage in vivid counterpoint to the frosted scenes outside. "Zazdarovye!" we cry at midnight, farewelling the old year with shots of vodka and welcoming the new with flutes of champagne.
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FROM TSARS TO SAINTS
Yekaterinburg is a city of death and rebirth, of constructivist architecture built on the foundations of the Bolshevik Revolution and the execution of the Romanovs here in 1918. Though writers passing through on their way to Siberia recalled an unpleasantly industrialised settlement, Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was deeply impressed by the spirit and ideas of the people, says local guide Olga Taranenko.
"They decided to destroy everything that reminded them of the old regime, and construct a new city."
But the new has been replaced with the old: churches have been re-consecrated and the once-reviled Romanovs – Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and five children – canonised. A cathedral stands on the site where the family died, its red granite walls "reminding us of the bloody events", Taranenko says. Even their once-secret burial site outside the city is now sanctified, a cluster of buildings comprising a monastery dedicated to the Romanov saints. Their remains were removed from here and interred in St Petersburg in 1998.
St. Basil's Cathedral and Spassky Tower on Red Square in Moscow on a summer evening. Photo: Shutterstock
IN SIBERIA
It takes 63 hours to reach Ulan-Ude, capital of the autonomous Republic of Buryatia. We sail from Europe into Asia, crossing oceans of snow, passing railway stations licked with bright paint and fitted with neon signs alerting us to the temperature: minus-22 at Omsk, minus-20 at Barabinsk where we emerge from the train's swelter into a cold so strident it cleanses our stale bodies and shocks us awake. We buy pierogi stuffed with cabbage and potato at a platform kiosk and watch as a railroad engineer crawls beneath the train, lies upon the snow-caked tracks and fiddles imperturbably with the frozen undercarriage.
Somewhere near Novosibirsk four men appear in our compartment doorway and sing us a song. They're from Perm, and are on their way to Lake Baikal to ice-skate. We applaud their cheerful ditty, though we've understood not a single word.
"You write about Baikal?" asks one of them, spying my notebook. I nod; he punches the air with his fist. "Baikal you will love," he says. ''Thank you for visiting in its most beautiful season."
Sledding across the ice of Lake Baikal. Photo: Alamy
On the second day of this leg I awake to flooding, late-morning light. I've missed the Yenisei River and an endlessly evolving landscape. We're fast-forwarding through time, gaining hours as we race away from the sun. Our group sprawls across several compartments, locked in games of chess, trapped inside books, embroiled in conversations or hypnotised by the Siberia scrolling by through ice-rimed windows. At mealtimes, the youngsters squeeze into the parents' compartment for makeshift feasts we've cobbled from shops and stalls along the way: bread and cheese and salami, instant mash, caviar sold by platform hawkers for a handful of rubles.
On the third day, I wake before dawn. We've halted in Irkutsk; I climb from the train into an ethereal gloom. The train recedes along the tracks, its outermost carriages erased by the silvered fog. It's minus-36 degrees, and today I turn 50. Never have I've felt so cold, nor so joyfully alive.
A LAKE FROZEN IN TIME
All day long the train crawls along the south-eastern edge of Lake Baikal. The water sloshes sluggishly, turns gradually to slush and then to solid ice as we curve northwards along the lake's eastern shoreline. Opposite it, fields slope into gullies, snowy whitecaps ripple the plains, fog cushions the tree-line like some mammoth exhalation. We see runnels protruding like ribcages from beneath thin coatings of ice; buckwheat might still be farmed here, says our guide Ksenia Martynova, though after the collapse of the Soviet Union many of Siberia's farms fell into ruin, too.
Temple of St. Sergius of Radonezh – the Monastery of the Holy Imperial Passion-Bearers. Photo: Alamy
Lake Baikal is the low-point of our journey; the temperatures plumb those unfathomable depths, tearing the breath from our lungs and freezing the blood in our veins. It's the high point of our journey, too, for this place is so otherworldly, so far beyond our imaginings, it stuns us into wakefulness and renewed gratitude for the world. So extraordinary is this shared experience, it will bind our family forever.
We disembark at Buryatia's capital Ulan-Ude, a city that embodies the great collision between Europe and Asia, Russia and Mongolia, Christian Orthodoxy and Buddhism. Stray dogs wag their tails, oblivious to cold, it seems; residents stride along streets wreathed with glacial condensation.
"The real Siberian is not the person who doesn't feel the cold," says local guide Goldan Lenkhoboev. "It's the person who dresses properly for it."
Our own polar-wear has served us well until now, but the cold seeps into our marrow in the village of Tarbagatay, where Fr Aleksei shows us around the ethnography museum he's curated. It's a flimsy, unheated space filled with artefacts belonging to Old Believers – Orthodox Christians who were exiled or fled from European Russia in the 17th century in the wake of church reforms, and whose way of life has changed little since then. The cold here is so piercing I can barely focus; it's a visceral reminder of the conditions into which Fr Aleksei's people – and so many others – were once cruelly banished.
We've seen not a single tourist on our journey so far, and now we have the whole of Sukhaya village to ourselves – except for the young Russian men doing burnouts in their Ladas on the ice-slicked shores of Lake Baikal. This fabled body of water – the world's deepest lake and the largest freshwater lake by volume – extends beyond the village in a brumous mass. It has put up a valiant fight against the deep freeze: waves heave and buck and petrify midair. The ice splinters beneath our boots, and when we skate on it the next day we notice air bubbles and water lilies trapped beneath its surface.
On Orthodox Christmas Eve, January 6, we drip sweat inside the banya (traditional sauna) at our guesthouse, submit to Martynova's birch whips – said to improve lymphatic flow – then run outside and smother ourselves in snow. Finally, we're learning to embrace the cold.
THE END OF THE LINE
It's another 62 hours from Ulan-Ude to Vladivostok. The frostbitten landscape flicks past our windows like a slideshow. It's inconceivable, from within the confines of this overheated compartment, that the conditions unspooling outside might kill us if we immersed ourselves in them unprotected; the snow-draped fields are beaches of silica, the larch trees jaunty filigrees against a blue sky. Young marines bound for the naval city run for the train, their breath puffs of smoke on the chill air; the temperature is slowly rising: minus 20, minus 15, minus 10, the neon signs say. A cook comes around sporadically with freshly made pierogis; we lie in wait and clear her tray in exchange for a few rubles.
At Khabarovsk the railway doglegs southwards. We will the train to slow down, but at dawn it pulls into Vladivostok. This is a revelation of a city, we will discover, a place of bright skylines and frozen bays, striking harbours and exceptional restaurants. But we're not yet ready to greet it. We linger on the platform – pleasantly bracing at just minus-eight degrees – and pose for a photo beside the monument marking the end of our epic journey. We've travelled 9288 kilometres – a full third of the world's circumferential span. And there's not one of us who wouldn't climb back on that train before it returns to Moscow, and do it all over again.
Catherine Marshall travelled with assistance from Intrepid.
THE TRANS-SIBERIAN IN NUMBERS
9288 kilometres total length, from Moscow to Vladivostok
1916 the year Moscow and Vladivostok were connected via the railway line
7 number of time zones crossed
60 average speed at kilometres per hour reached by the train
1/3: span of the globe covered by the railway line
7 days it takes to complete the journey, without getting off along the way
16 major rivers crossed by the railway
87 towns and cities the railway passes through
FIVE OTHER JOURNEYS WORTH TAKING IN EXTREMES
DEATH VALLEY IN SUMMER
If you visit the US's Death Valley at the height of summer, you might find out just how hot hot can get: 56.7 degrees as measured in 1913, the second hottest temperature on record. As long as you take all the necessary precautions (such as keeping hydrated and ensuring you have mobile contact) you can enjoy the landscape at its most primordial and without the shoulder-season crowds. Or enter the annual midsummer Badwater Ultramarathon, which starts at 85 metres below sea level and ascends 4000 metres across 217 kilometres and three mountain ranges.
VICTORIA FALLS DURING PEAK WATER
You'll need to take a raincoat if you visit this world wonder in the wet season, when islands upstream from the falls – accessible by boat in the dry season – are drowned by summer's deluge. View the spectacle of hundreds of millions of litres of water a minute gushing into the great cataract separating Zimbabwe from Zambia. Peak water, as it's called, runs from around March to June and (in good news for the bottom line) precedes peak season.
AMERICAN MIDWEST DURING TORNADO SEASON
Eye-of-the-storm itineraries exist for those who dream of observing springtime twisters up-close in a region of the American Midwest known as Tornado Alley. Journeys centre on midwestern states such as Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska during May and June. Sightings aren't guaranteed, but participants are likely to see supercell storms and the impressive lightning shows that often accompany them. See stormchasing.com
ICEFIELDS PARKWAY IN WINTER
In winter practically everything is iced over along this 230-kilometre-long route linking Lake Louise and Jasper in Alberta, Canada: lakes, waterfalls, peaks, forests, glaciers and bitumen. Winter tyres or snow chains are essential. Travel cautiously, dress warmly and stop regularly at lookouts for views of glacier-licked valleys and snow-laden forests. Bears will be hibernating but you'll see bighorn sheep, elk and caribou – and possibly wolves.
KAKADU IN THE WET
Most people assume the NT is off limits during the wet season: too damp, too sticky, too hot. But the wet season is a wild and magical time when waterfalls overflow and floodplains brim with water, intensifying the landscape's lushness and attracting numerous birds. Some roads are closed during the wet (which runs from around November to May) limiting access to sites, and animals are more dispersed; but visitors will have the park almost all to themselves – and it will cost as little as half of what it would in the high season.
FIVE MORE GREAT COLD WEATHER JOURNEYS
EUROPE'S CHRISTMAS MARKETS
These festive markets have been brightening winter-darkened cities since the 16th century. Cities such as Prague, Vienna and Berlin are transformed into charming bazaars selling an assortment of artisanal food, arts and crafts and merry experiences. The markets draw crowds onto light-spangled streets – and help draw travellers who might otherwise visit during the continent's unbearably busy summer season.
QUEBEC'S WINTER CARNIVAL
The people of Quebec City have turned their iciest month, February, into a celebration of all things winter: ice slides, outdoor cinema, dance parties and ice-skating, night parades, snow baths, dog sledding and a canoe race in which competitors paddle along the St Lawrence River through masses of ice.
ANTARCTICA
Strictly speaking, a visit to Antarctica is a summertime jaunt, since this is the season when pack ice melts enough to allow cruise ships to pass through. Nonetheless, the landscape is still a magical realm of ice – pack ice, sea ice, icebergs, glaciers and that icy water in which brave adventurers can take the briefest of dips.
GLACIER EXPRESS
This storybook voyage between Zermatt and St Moritz began as a steam train journey ferrying well-heeled holidaymakers between these glitzy Swiss ski resorts. The 275-kilometre route transports passengers through a winter wonderland filled with dazzling mountain peaks, soaring passes and snow-filled valleys.
HARBIN'S ICE FESTIVAL
Residents of this this northern Chinese city harness its unfathomably cold winters during the International Ice and Snow Festival, creating elaborate ice sculptures – including recreations of famous landmarks like the Great Wall of China. Brave festival-goers can join swimmers for a ritual dip in the frozen Songhua River.
TRIP NOTES
MORE
traveller.com.au/russia
russiatourism.ru/en
FLY
Etihad flies to Abu Dhabi twice daily from Sydney and Melbourne and once daily from Brisbane and Perth, with onward connections to Moscow. See: etihad.com. Korean Airlines flies several times a day from Vladivostok to Seoul, with onward connections to Sydney and Brisbane. See koreanair.com
TOUR
Intrepid Travel's 15-day Russia Expedition: Winter Trans-Siberian Adventure is priced from $3055 a person twin share and has many departures beginning from December 2019. Private group bookings are also available. See intrepidtravel.com.au
KEEP WARM
Appropriate winter gear is essential for this journey. For the coldest outdoor excursions, layer clothing in the following sequence: thermal vest and leggings, jeans or thick pants and a long-sleeved shirt, thermal jumper, polar jacket and waterproof shell, tube scarf, beanie, glove liners and waterproof polar gloves. Snow boots paired with warm socks are essential – Sorel and Colombia are highly recommended. Pack lightweight clothing for the train; it will be warm and quite possibly overheated.
STAY SANE ON THE TRAIN
Compartments are compact but comfortable, with two bunks sleeping four people each; clean bedding is provided. There are two toilets with hand basins and cold water at the end of each carriage. A provodnista or provodnik (female or male carriage attendant) is in charge of each carriage; they keep it clean, provide passengers with beverage glasses and ensure the samovar is filled with hot water. It's a good idea to buy a few snacks, teabags or sachets of coffee from them as they receive a small commission from sales and appreciate the custom.
There are regular stops of various durations; schedules are posted in the carriage. There are often kiosks on the platforms or in the stations selling bottled water and food. Some food should also be bought at supermarkets prior to departure since not all trains have dining carriages. The trains are well-used by locals, many of whom will approach foreigners for conversation. Take small gifts from Australia to share with them.
from traveller.com.au
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roses are red, roses are white chapter one
Prologue
roses are red, roses are white
part one
now rises the sun of york
chapter one
so wilts the red rose
It is the coldest Christmas Madge can remember.
It's everything she'd dreamed of and more, yet Madge cannot find any cheer. She is too young to truly understand what happened, but there is a black hole inside of her filled with fear, a fear that eats away at any joy she manages to discover. She should feel like a princess as she walks around the suite of rooms her family has been gifted, but instead she feels skittish and scared of shadows. Madge takes hesitant steps on the fur carpeting the stone floors to keep her feet warm and wants to sink her toes into it, wants to rejoice in the splendor around her but there's a prickle at the back of her neck, a tingle of something awful.
Her bed is large enough for her and several friends, covered in more pillows than she'll ever know what to do with. Delicate roses are etched into the wooden frame and she runs her fingers over them, traces the patterns with her nails. Red velvet curtains hang about the bed and the walls are adorned with finely threaded tapestries depicting battle scenes, the Virgin Mary and heroic deeds.
(Madge stares at those heroes each night before she climbs into bed, promises herself they're keeping her safe)
Her garments hang in a well carved wardrobe, a merry fire crackles in the hearth but it never fights away her chill and each item of dark wood furniture is glossy to the touch. She wishes she had flowers to put on every surface, to make the room feel bright and alive, but winter cold has killed them all.
(Madge almost believes they'd have withered anyway)
(there is something in the air at Westminster, something toxic)
Madge climbs into her great big bed and drowns in it, memories blending with nightmares to cling to her even in her waking hours. She stares at the panneled ceiling of her room, painted with roses, crowned wolves and King Coriolanus, and feels sick and lightheaded. The mesmerizing magic Madge had seen on her first foray into London has disappeared, replaced by the harsh light of day.
I just want to go home
Let us just go home
Fires blaze in every room, garlands are strewn across doorframes and banisters, and talented minstrels play music all day long but Madge does not feel the warmth or recognize the tunes, feels as horrible as her mother looks. Lady Bedford is pale and drawn, barely eats and speaks so quietly her words sound more like breaths. She withers and wastes under the King's dark eyes, but still attends every festivity, the hunts and feasts and masques, the performances and concerts and recitals. Her husband begins to lose his colour, rounded cheeks starting to thin, but the King doesn't seem to notice, greets them with oily smiles, offers them the best seats and the choicest foods and Madge's curiosity would usually ask why, but she is too dazed with horror to wonder.
The palace smells of holly and rich food, an army of cooks slaving in the kitchen for every hour of the day and each meal is a feast, course after course after course. Madge can barely stomach it all, would feel like a glutton if she even tried but King Coriolanus' court is one of extravagance and excess, always loud and full of people. The celebration never seems to end but Madge is listless and quiet, can't muster any excitement at magnificent decorations or beautifully dressed lords and ladies. Her father points them out to her, trying to rise her to emotion, to life.
"That is Lord Brutus, Duke of Somerset. He is a favourite of the King and Queen."
(hard and mean with angry eyes, Madge is not surprised)
"Over there is the Earl of Pembroke, Lord Boggs. The King's half-brother."
(younger and darker, he looks nothing like his brother. Madge cannot help but find that comforting)
"Beside him is his nephew, Finnick, Earl of Richmond."
(slightly older than her and already handsome, Madge would have swooned if she didn't see blood every time she closed her eyes)
"Ah yes, and that is the Earl of Richmond's mother, the Lady Alma and her new husband, Lord Heavensbee."
(she is grey and stern, he is colourful and laughing. What an odd combination)
(the Duke of York is nowhere to be seen)
None of her observations are enough to dislodge the monster taken root in her mind. The King fills every corner of her, dark eyed and cackling as heads roll. He looms over the festivities from his raised throne, dressed always in exquisite garments trimmed with fur. His bony fingers are weighed down by rings studded with every jewel she can name and even some she can't, and a glittering crown sits on his head, bright gold with dazzling gems. It presses down on him and makes him hunch, his neck bending under the weight.
He orders performances every night, but instead of Saint George and the Dragon or Noah's Arc, these players act out scenes all about the glory of His Majesty, King Coriolanus of England. Shimmering plates of solid gold piled with sugared deserts are laid before them as poets rhapsodize about the King and Madge finds herself unable to eat, the sweets appearing almost grotesque.
Madge counts the days as they pass, looks out snowy windows and prays they will soon return home.
(if anyone ever bothered to ask, Madge would say Westminster is more a prison than a palace)
Their last night in London finally comes, capped by the most opulent ball.
Madge is determined to enjoy herself, refuses to wallow in the same hole of misery she's been trapped in since they arrived here. She is tired of nightmares and fear and sadness, wants to have one night where everything is bright and lovely and wonderful. A fool's hope perhaps, but Madge promises herself she will be happy tonight, that she will greet this new year of 1463 with nothing but smiles. This will be a year of joy.
Not even a king shall take that from me she vows as her maids help her dress. They lace her into a white kirtle threaded through with silver and then her new periwinkle houppelande, the fabric decorated with delicate fleur-de-lis made of pearls and a collar of white velvet. They accent it with a white girdle jeweled with sapphires, then weave blue ribbons and pearls into her hair and Madge runs hands over the silk of her dress, enthusiasm flagging in her heart. One of the maids hangs a pretty string of diamonds and pearls around her neck and Madge looks at her reflection, tries to muster up some excitement. This should be a dream come true, after all, how often does she get to wear such finery?
Stop it, be happy
Madge pinches colour into her cheeks, puts on her rings, a ruby one from a grandmother who'd died before she was born, a sapphire one received as a gift from her father and affixes a silver and turquoise brooch from her mother to the front of her kirtle.
"You look beautiful, my lady," one of the maids tells her and Madge forces herself to preen like she usually would.
This shouldn't be so hard.
Just tonight, just be happy tonight.
They dab her with rosewater and then she steps outside her chamber to greet her parents, both of them in their very best garments. They walk down together but don't share a word, Westminster's forbidding walls leeching the life right out of them. Elegantly dressed lords and ladies crowd the halls and Madge feels a small thrill at the sight and focuses on it, tries to force that spark into an inferno. Her eyes drink in everything they pass and she desperately wants this night to be one worth remembering, wants to preserve just one happy memory from this trip.
The great gilded doors to the banqueting hall are already thrown open and Madge enters behind her parents, a tiny, tiny part of her managing to marvel at the golden festivities. She inhales deeply, the whole room hung with sweet smelling wreaths and garlands. Minstrels play lively music and the floor is scrubbed so clean it almost shines. Thousands of candles burn while roaring fires keep the room warm and silver bells jangle from the wrists and ankles of dancing girls dressed in floaty, nearly transparent costumes. A tiny sigh flutters in Madge's chest, in awe at the splendor and she looks up at the King's table, raised higher than all the rest. The royal family will be the last to arrive and the room feels brighter without them, the holidays slightly more merry.
Madge sits at the long banqueting table assigned to the various children and younger nobles, each one dressed in glittering finery. The wood shimmers in the candlelight and the handsome Earl of Richmond, thirteen year old Finnick Odair, sits at the head of the table, resplendent in emerald green. He talks excitedly, too far away for Madge to hear, but his very green eyes light up, his golden smile stretched wide. Heads turn in his direction, girls tittering excitedly and Madge guesses Prince Cato must be seething with jealousy.
(she feels the start of a genuine smile at the thought)
Madge looks around the table and tries to remember everyone's names but they blur in her head, her misery these past weeks having foiled her memory. A dark haired girl in purple sits to her left, but doesn't speak, her gaze lingering on Finnick of Richmond and Madge looks at her from the corner of her eye. She wracks her brain but honestly has no idea if they've been introduced before, an utter blank filling up her mind.
Do I introduce myself and hope for the best? But what if we've already met? What if I insult her?
After too many minutes spent agonizing, she decides not to say anything, not wanting to risk it but then she remembers her promise to herself, that she will be happy tonight, will enjoy herself. She plasters on a smile and hopes she looks sincere.
"Hello, I'm Madge of Bedford. My father's the Duke," she greets and the girl turns abruptly, lovely ocean eyes wide. She continues to stare at Madge in surpise, as if someone speaking to her is the most baffling possibility and Madge feels her smile start to wilt. Perhaps she'd have been better off remaining quiet. The girl ducks her head.
"My apologies, my lady. I'm Annie. Anne! Of Oxford. My father's the Earl."
Madge can see Anne's cheeks flush pink and wishes she would look up, but she supposes the daughter of a duke outranks that of an earl. Madge smiles as warmly as she can manage.
"It is a pleasure to meet you Lady Anne."
"And you Lady Madge."
A herald blares on his horn before they can say anymore and a deep hush falls over the room, every head turned to the doors. Madge feels her chest tighten.
"His Majesty, King Coriolanus!" the herald bellows and everyone stands. The men doff their hats and bow, the women all curtsy and the King sweeps in with an amused smirk, his lips smeared over with blood. Madge focuses in on that, that one disturbing detail and cannot help but wonder why his lips are always painted and dripping with blood. Is he diseased? Is it contagious?
He does not look sickly though, instead he glows, dressed in his finest houppelande of cloth of gold crusted with precious gems and a long ermine lined mantle that trails across the floor behind him. His hands twinkle with rings, his crown sparkles and the Queen beside him dazzles in a ruby red gown studded with diamonds, tourmalines and garnets. Prince Cato swaggers in behind them, his boots black and glossy, his doublet silvery and delicate. A golden coronet rests on his head and blends well with his sunny hair and Madge thinks he could be handsome if only he didn't make her so uneasy.
The royal family take their seats at the high table but the King waits for a few moments before commanding them all to sit. He enjoys this, Madge thinks, enjoys flaunting his authority.
"Be seated," he finally allows and they all sit as the music begins again. All eyes stay on the King, waiting for his instruction and Madge starts to feel an itch at the base of her spine, a bubble of discontent starting to grow inside her. The King roves lazy eyes over them, lingering over the dancers with his lips curled and then claps his hands. Silver angels enter with jugs of spiced wine and mead while golden ones bring trays laden with figs, dates, pears, apples and strawberries. Madge wants to be enchanted, she really does, but that bubble keeps growing larger, filling her up with no room left for anything else.
Don't do this
Be happy, please
Madge pinches her palm to clear her misgivings and focuses on the food in front of her. She knows it isn't ladylike, but she piles up her plate with strawberries, is always craving her favourite fruit.
(and maybe she hopes to pop that bubble inside of her with something she loves)
Lady Anne nibbles on a single pear and Madge feels a bit like a pig, her mountain of fruit looking monstrous in comparison. She peeks up at the King, juices running down his chin and catching in his beard, and feels decidedly better.
(though she supposes while someone might lecture her on her manners, no one would dare do so to the King)
The fruit is exquisite, the best she's ever had but that bubble stays inside of her, not even dented and Madge feels like a sinking ship. She's never been depressed a day in her life, and now, surrounded by more splendor than she could conjure in her wildest dreams, a smile feels impossible. Happiness has never been such a chore and Madge cannot help but blame the King. His wicked deeds have poisoned her.
(that's treason, comes a voice in her head)
(I know, she whispers back)
Servers come with basins for them to wash their hands before the second course and Madge shakes her head, stubbornly refuses to give up. She will enjoy herself tonight, she will. Angelic servers arrive with a variety of pies, filled with meat, eggs, vegetables and fruit, mountains and mountains of them, enough for an entire village. Madge takes in their delicately feathered wings and wishes real angels were here, children of light to fight off the shadows in every corner.
Stop thinking like that, stop it
Madge closes her eyes, digs nails into her wrists and inhales deeply. She opens her eyes, resolved again to banish unhappiness from tonight. She turns to the pie platters before her and knows it's silly after eating an entire plate full, but takes a strawberry pie from the pile anyway.
(gluttony some might say, but this is the only comfort she can find)
Her nurse would be utterly appalled, so Madge turns to Lady Anne beside her.
"Would you care to share? I think a whole pie might be too much for me."
(this is a lie)
(Madge could definitely eat a whole pie)
Lady Anne blinks at her but then smiles sweetly, eyes bright with pleasure. "I would love to."
Madge is surprised to feel a smile on her own face, that bubble in her stomach suddenly leaking air and cuts the pie carefully in half, sliding Lady Anne's portion onto her plate.
(maybe there is comfort to be found in other places too)
"Bon appetit," Madge says and Anne dips her head.
"And to you."
They giggle a bit and Madge wonders if this is what it feels like to have a friend, one who isn't a poppet or your parents. Not that Madge would be so presumptuous as to call Lady Anne her friend, but deep down, she feels a little better already. They dig in and the pie is delicious, though not quite as good as their cook's back home, and Madge is craving a hundred others. She wants more but knows she shouldn't, shoulders lighter after her exchange with Lady Anne.
(maybe because now she's not alone)
Thankfully the servers arrive to clear the dishes and Madge is saved from any decisions. Washing basins come around again and the pies are replaced with oysters, mussels, scallops and more fish than Madge could ever name. Anne takes dainty bites of a scallop and Madge knows it is a sin, but she cannot help but be envious of how birdlike she is, will never look quite so graceful as she eats.
Washing basins come to signal the end of the course and Madge washes her hands even though she didn't eat anything, would hate for people to think her unhygienic. Next comes meat, with beef, chicken, pork, mutton, lamb, venison, partridge, quail, goose and duck. Even more impressive, a staple of royalty, are the swans and peacocks, painstakingly re-feathered after they were cooked. Anne frowns.
"Is the scallop not agreeing with you?" Madge asks worriedly, having had her own bad experiences with fish and queasy stomachs.
Anne blushes down to her neck.
"Oh no, no of course not. I just...I don't like when it still looks like a real animal, like it might fly off any moment," she admits, embarrassed, but Madge takes a long look at the swans and peacocks and realizes she may be right.
"It is somewhat unnerving," she agrees and Anne sinks in her seat in relief. They share a smile and Madge helps herself to some quail while Anne takes a miniature amount of pork. Madge ladles a thick sauce onto her meat and everything is luxuriously spiced and seasoned, the heady aroma floating into her brain and making her hazy. Her eyes drift around the room and find Prince Cato, who has clearly inherited his father's table manners. He gorges himself on roasted swan and peacock, stuffing it in his face like a wild animal and Madge grimaces in disgust. Anne follows her line of sight and takes him in with wide eyes.
"Not quite so princely, is he?" she whispers and Madge giggles into her sleeve.
(he doesn't seem so frightening now)
They wash their hands again and then dine on doughnuts, biscuits and turnovers. Each one is scrumptious, but Madge makes sure not to eat too much, wants to be able to savor dessert.
"Is this your first time at court?" Anne asks her and she nods. "I thought so. How old are you, Lady Madge?"
"I shall be ten in March," she declares proudly and Anne smiles.
"I turned eleven in August," she says and Madge pouts even though she knows she shouldn't.
"Have you been to court before?" she questions, hoping she won't be beat in this too, but Anne nods slowly, eyes turned down to her plate.
"I have been coming ever since I was very young," she murmurs and there is something in her tone that makes Madge bite her lip. She grabs Anne's hand beneath the table, the fingers cold and trembling. Anne looks up with wet eyes and Madge smiles at her, wants to sweep away her sadness like Anne did hers. Anne sucks in her bottom lip and then smiles back, a cloud seemingly lifted and they keep their hands together until the servers come with more washing basins.
(what could make her so unhappy?)
(Madge is fairly certain she knows the answer)
Melancholy thoughts start to recede at the magnificent spread of subtleties laid out before them, decorated with the petals of roses, violets and elder flowers. They are presented with fritters, sweet custard, darioles, crepes with sugar, strawberry tarts, plum tarts, cherry tarts, mulled wine, aged cheese, fruit paste and fruits covered in sugar, honey or syrup. Several servers come out carrying a great replica of Westminster made of marchpane and people applaud as it is set on the head table.
Madge takes a few spoonfuls of custard, several syrupy strawberries and splits a crepe with Anne. She smiles, finally truly enjoying herself, and this is nice, is what she wanted all those months she dreamed at home. Prince Cato takes everything he can get his hands on, stuffing his face with darioles, honeyed pears, crepes and marchpane. Madge purses her lips, wonders if he's ever learned any manners, and her eyes slide to his father beside him, her blood suddenly running cold. There is a red smear left behind on the King's wine goblet, like a kiss of death and it terrifies her for reasons she can't explain, all the warmth and joy she'd began to feel draining away, the horrors of Westminster returning with a fresh virulence. She abandons the rest of her dessert, her stomach shriveled and small.
They wash their hands for the final time and the King claps his again, the music becoming more raucous. The dancers spill between the tables, spinning and whirling and performers stream into the hall, some juggling and others flipping through the air. People ooh and ahh as acrobats fly and a man breathes fire, a knife thrower earning gasps and applause. Madge yearns to enjoy herself as well, but she wants to retire, her excitement replaced with the claustrophobic dread she'd been feeling since that terrible day in the square. She squeezes her eyes shut as the memories flood back and this isn't what she wanted. Can she not have just one night?
(no)
The performances seem to carry on forever and Madge feels so tired, like she hasn't slept in months. I just want to go home. She needs her parents but can't find them in the sea of faces and finally the King stands, everyone hurrying to do the same, their benches scraping loudly over the stone floors. He steps down from the dais, Queen Enobaria and Prince Cato following after him and Madge prays this means the night is coming to it's end.
The bell wearing dancers begin to twirl from the room, the royal family falling in behind them. Soon, everyone in the hall is moving out as a procession, the musicians bringing up the rear. Madge wonders if she could just slip away and crawl up into her oversized bed, desperately wishes this night was over. Instead, they are led into a great hall, the dancers spinning around in the center of the room. The King and Queen sit on gilded thrones at the far end of the hall and everyone else fills in around the edges, the musicians setting up in the corner. Madge takes a look around the large, empty room and knows they've been brought here for after dinner dancing. Will this night never end?
(never ever)
No one moves, waits for the King to decide what happens next. He surveys them with smirking malice and then makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. The dancers cease their movements, the echo of their bells tinkling around the hall. They drape themselves around his throne and Madge wonders if she's imagining the uneasiness in their eyes.
(she doubts it)
"Let the youngest among us begin tonight," the King commands and Madge feels like her feet are made of stone. A serving boy hurries to bring the King more wine and the children around her begin buzzing excitedly, each one searching for a partner. Even though she'd practised for so long, even though she'd be so looking forward to it, she prays no one will ask her to dance.
Various pairs form but the girls around her hold their breath and Madge realizes it's because Finnick of Richmond is looking around, eyes skipping over each girl they land on. Every girl seems to vibrate, desperate to dance with him but his gaze stops on Anne, her eyes sparkly as she takes in the dancefloor. He lights up and smiles, easy and slow as it stretches across his face. Lord Finnick walks over, girls deflating like old wine sacks when he passes them. He stops in front of Anne and smiles, bowing low.
"Lady Anne, may I have this dance?"
Her cheeks turn a deep, dark pink and she won't meet his eyes, but she nods quickly and he takes her pale hand in his. They step out onto the dancefloor, followed by venomous glares and Madge feels a little warm for a reason she can't explain. It vanishes quickly though, replaced with frigid unhappiness when she catches sight of Prince Cato. He sneers at her, but is definitely walking right towards her. She peeks around him and sees the King watching them, his eyes narrowed and his smirk bloody as always. Her stomach sinks and though she has no idea why, she knows he must have ordered the Prince to dance with her. Cato half-bows before her, eyes hard.
"Would you like to dance, Lady Madge?"
No, she wants to shout, no! She knows better though and dips into a curtsy.
"I would be most honoured, your Highness."
He takes her hand with sticky fingers and tugs her into the centre of the room. The music picks up in intensity and everyone stumbles through the appropriate steps, Madge's own legs weighed down with lead. Cato jerks her around the floor, her movements stiff and Madge counts each and every second of the dance until it is over. Cato takes issue with her inattention and stomps on her foot, pain screaming up from her crushed toes. She bites her lip to stop from crying out and knows he did it on purpose, his eyes mean and dark. She exhales sharply and does not glare at him no matter how much she wants to, chooses to peer over his shoulder and take comfort in Anne and Finnick, making such a pretty pair as they dance.
The song mercifully comes to an end and Cato releases her like he's been burned. He scowls, the edges of his teeth visible between his lips.
"You're not very good, are you?" he asks, voice harsh and loud enough for everyone around them to hear. Madge does not bristle even as lightning crackles beneath her skin, drops into a curtsy instead.
"My most sincere apologies, your Highness," she demures and he snorts, stomping off. She rises and people are staring at her, whispers passing behind their hands. She wants to run and hide, humiliation heavy on her shoulders but she doesn't, retreats instead to the edge of the room with as much dignity as she can muster. This night was supposed to be her one perfect memory of this trip to court, but tonight she is as miserable as she's always been.
Perhaps there is no such thing as happiness here.
"Idiot!" the King's voice booms and Madge flinches, heart suddenly racing. There is a terrible sound of a hand striking flesh and Madge turns in time to see the King's serving boy crash to the floor, the force of the King's backhand sending him reeling. The wine jug he'd been carrying cracks as it lands on the stone, a dark puddle spreading out in every direction.
"Useless cur!" the King continues, the pointed toe of his shoe digging into the boy's back as he kicks him. Madge clamps her hands over her mouth, the urge to retch seizing hold of her. The King kicks the boy again, ignores his whimpers and then looks up, his face feverish.
"Did I say you were allowed to stop?" he barks at the minstrels and they hurriedly start playing again, their pace frenzied. Madge hadn't even realized they'd stopped, her whole world narrowed in on the bleeding boy on the floor. How could the King be so cruel?
"Remove this filth from my hall!" he snaps to a pair of guards and they haul the boy off, dragging him from the room.
"Lord Brutus, see that the wretch is properly dealt with," the King orders and the Duke of Somerset steps forward with an eager grin.
"As you command, my King."
The boy thrashes suddenly in the guards arms and begs for mercy, garbles out apologies, tears leaking onto his face. Madge wonders why he looks so terrified, wonders what awful punishment the King and Lord Brutus have in store.
(she's better off not knowing)
Everyone hurries to return to their dancing as the King sinks back into his throne but Madge cannot move, rooted to the floor with horror. This place is cursed she wants to wail but never would.
Even at nine, she knows she will receive no mercy.
Madge wakes early on their day of departure, a thick, sickly anticipation coursing through her veins. There is only the faintest hint of dawn light creeping through the window and Madge stares up at the ceiling, eyes tracing the outline of King Coriolanus' portrait. She can't make him out, but she knows he's there, looming over her and the thought makes her stomach turn. She yanks the covers up over her head to block him out, like the shields brave knights wear into battle.
"We'll be home soon," she whispers in the gloom, "home and safe."
(except there is no safe, not in King Coriolanus' England)
The maids help her dress for traveling and she vibrates with an eager intensity to flee this castle of terror. All her things are already packed, ready to be lugged into a litter and Madge waits impatiently for her parents, can't understand why they're taking so long. She paces along the length of her room, fingertips brushing extravagant furniture and oh, how she wishes she could be as enamored of it as she wants to be.
(but her eyes are open now, and beauty can't hide the hideous things that lie beneath it)
She thinks it must have been hours she's been pacing when a knock sounds at the door, a page of her father's bringing summons. She practically bounces out of the room, her nurse hurrying after her and already, it's like she's shed so many weights and pounds.
"Good morning," she chirps as she greets her parents, livelier than she's been in all the weeks they've been here. Her father smiles as he pulls on his travelling gloves and a lady's maid fastens a cloak over Madge's shoulders, tugs the hood up over her head. His grin is wider, like it always used to be and Madge puts on her own gloves with a sense of contentment she's been missing. Her mother still looks frail under her heavy winter wear but the colour is returning to her cheeks and Madge feels hope fluttering like a bird in her chest.
We're going to be okay
She clambers up into their carriage, her mother settling in beside her. Maids rush about, draping them in thick furs and placing hot bricks underneath their feet while Madge leans against the window edge, takes in Westminster Palace for what she hopes will be the very last time. Her father swings up onto his horse and winks at her. Madge bites her lip around a grin and their long train of horses, litters and men starts off, trundling down London's cold streets.
"Come away from the window, sweetheart," her mother says but Madge doesn't listen, drinks in the chilly air and the wan faces of the people they pass. Everyone averts their eyes as they roll by, all of their movements shifty and nervous. The air here is tense and she can feel it trying to leech away her glee at going home. Madge sucks in her bottom lip as she loses count of all the soldiers and guards sprinkled throughout the city, each one sporting a livery badge of the King, a silver wolf crowned in gold.
Why are there so many? Is London really so dangerous?
(the answer is yes, of course)
(the real question, is who in London is so dangerous)
They turn a corner and Madge inhales sharply, her eyes widening in alarm. Standing in the slushy road is a line of men bound together with chains, their clothes thin and ratty. The carriage lurches to a stop, the road blocked and her father's squire rides forward to speak with the man in charge of these men, his uniform a bloody red and emblazoned with the King's wolf. Each man is sallow and ill-fed, eyes sunken and cheek bones jutting out. Madge cannot take her eyes off of them even as her stomach rolls over and over and she leans forward, nearly hanging out of the window.
"Madge," her mother reprimands but she barely hears it over the crack of a whip, like thunder loud in her ears. Madge flinches as the men are hurried to the side of the street and one stumbles, his knobbly knees sinking into the grey snow. He hunches over and Madge watches in horror as the snow starts to redden, her throat burning with bile.
"Madge," her mother starts again and Madge closes her eyes, nails digging into the wood of the carriage. A wave of sickness crashes inside of her as the carriage starts again and she keeps her eyes closed until they turn another corner. She breathes deeply and blinks them open, the very top of Westminster still visible. It towers over London and Madge does not need to wonder about the fear she sees in the eyes of the people they pass. There is a shadow over London, a fear permeating the streets.
No one here is happy.
(except the King)
They reach the city gates and Madge says a last farewell to London, offering silent prayers that she never has to return. Her mother pulls her against her side and Madge snuggles into her arms, relieved to be on her way home.
The King can't touch them there.
(if only if only if only)
Bedford Castle is the most welcome sight Madge has ever seen and she throws herself out of the carriage almost before it's stopped.
She nearly trips over her skirts but her father swoops down from his horse and grabs her, swinging her up into his arms. Her mother climbs down from the carriage in a much more careful fashion and comes to stand beside them, her arm fitting snugly around her husband's waist.
"It is good to be back," her father says and Madge nods.
"It is good to be home," her mother corrects and they all seem to exhale together, expelling the toxins bleeding from Westminster's walls. Whatever happened in London is over, Madge assures herself, we are safe now, home and safe.
(how naive she is)
Only months later, before Madge has even turned ten, news comes of another revolt in London, followed by a mass execution.
(fifty four dead)
(fifty four)
Madge wraps her blankets around herself at night and knows she won't sleep a wink. The dead crawl like ghosts through the shadows of her room and she wonders if it will ever end, the rebellions and riots and death.
Why is it that so many people are willing to commit treason, to rise against their sovereign lord? Was he not ordained by God? Are they not compelled to show him fealty?
But he is wrong wails a voice in Madge's heart as she remembers the fear that hung heavy in London's streets, the terror in the eyes of its citizens. There had been a dark whisper then in the halls of Westminster, a promise of bloodshed to come.
Perhaps the time has finally come.
(not yet, but soon)
(here is a secret Madge learns at nine)
(the King is evil)
"It appears I've won again," the Duke of Bedford says with a grin, setting down his cards on the table. Madge pouts.
"Ladies do not pout, my love," her mother admonishes gently while her graceful fingers put the finishing touches on a purse for her husband. Madge tries to squish down her pout and fails, tossing her own cards onto the table. Her father laughs.
"Fear not, my sweet. Practice does make perfect. I'm sure you'll be beating me in no time."
Madge huffs softly. She'd like to be beating him now. Her mother examines the purse with a critical eye and then offers it to her husband.
"What think you, my lord?" she asks and the Duke takes it with careful hands.
"Magnificent," he declares and his wife rolls her eyes, "I shall wear it proudly."
Margaret of Bedford shakes her head fondly at him and he leans in for a kiss. Madge watches them and the smiles present on both their lips and feels her frustration ebb away.
"Try and keep better care of it this time, I would prefer to do more with my time than embroider purses," the Duchess teases and her husband grins, fastening the purse to his belt.
"I shall endeavor to do my best," he promises and the room feels pleasantly warm to Madge, everything bright and rosy. It's been months since they'd left London, she's ten and all grown up now, and she could almost imagine it was all a bad dream, a nightmare half-remembered.
"Alright," her father says, standing up, "I think it's time our little lady went off to bed."
Madge frowns.
"I'm not tired!" she insists and her father smiles and scoops her up into his arms.
"Perhaps not now, but you will be tomorrow if you don't get enough sleep tonight."
"But fatheeeeerrrrr," she whines and her mother frowns.
"Madge, remember your manners."
Proper ladies do not whine and they always obey their lord father, she recounts in her head and why must manners always be so bothersome?
"Indeed, what great lord will want such a whiner as a wife?" her father asks and tickles her side. Madge squirms in his arms.
"Oh Papa, stop, stop Papa!" she giggles and her mother shakes her head.
"You are both terrible," she pronounces but she smiles prettily at them all the same.
"I was merely punishing a disobedient daughter," her father insists and Madge giggles into his shoulder.
"If I believed that, I would have to have wool for brains," her mother retorts, voice bubbly with laughter. The Duke gasps.
"Is that any way to talk to your Lord Husband? All the women here are so impudent," he says in mock-disappointment and then looks down at Madge with a secret smile.
"Shall we teach this lady a lesson?" he asks and Madge nods eagerly. He reaches out and takes her mother by the hand, tugging her gently over to them. Her mother's arms go around them both and Madge likes this, being warm and safe in her parents' embrace.
"I know exactly what you are planning and you would not dare," her mother tells them and the Duke catches Madge's eye and winks. Tiny fingers attack Lady Bedford, tickling wherever they can reach.
"Madge-stop this-at once," her mother gets out between peals of laughter but Madge ignores this, her own laughter mingling with her mother's.
"Stop-stop!" her mother begs and all three of them are laughing, together and happy and untouched by all the horrors to come.
(and that's how Madge will remember this, one perfect golden moment where everything was wonderful and bright)
A knock sounds at the door and interrupts their mirth, both of her parents furrowing their brows. Her father sets her down and turns to the door with a frown.
"You may enter," he calls and Sir Thomas Cartwright, her father's Marshal, steps inside. His face is drawn and Madge feels the temperature drop. Sir Thomas is in charge of all their defenses and military matters, does this mean they are under attack?
"I apologize, my lord," Sir Thomas says as he bows, "but you have received urgent summons from the King."
All the air seems to have left the room, Madge's whole body left breathless.
"Why?' her father questions, a quaver in the back of his voice. Sir Thomas looks at Madge and her mother, clearly uncertain if he should say whatever it is in front of them.
"Go ahead," he father urges and Sir Thomas bows his head.
"There is armed rebellion in Kent. The King commands you to raise men and head there immediately to help stamp it out."
Madge feels her mouth drop open and her mother gasps, covering her mouth with trembling hands.
"I see," her father whispers, voice suddenly rough. "We will leave as soon as possible. See that everything is prepared."
Sir Thomas bows again. "Immediately, your Grace." He turns and sweeps from the room, Madge staring unseeingly after him.
"Joseph," her mother says and snags her husband's sleeve between shaking fingers. He turns to look at her with sad eyes and neither of them says a word, so much more conveyed in silence. He covers her hand with his, their eyes trained on each other and the sudden urge to cry bubbles up in Madge's gut.
Don't go Papa, please don't go
Her mother grabs her husband's face, fingers on his cheeks and kisses him with a fierceness Madge has never seen before, her skin flushing red.
"Be careful," the Duchess commands him, their foreheads touching.
"I will."
"You'll be back soon, won't you Father?" Madge asks, fear like poison in her veins. He turns to her with a smile, reaching one hand out to stroke her hair.
"As soon as I'm able," he promises and then kisses her forehead. Madge closes her eyes, tears stinging under her eyelids.
"We will come and see you off," her mother murmurs, voice faint and afraid. There is a pause, heavy with unsaid things and Madge hugs herself, dread welling up and spilling through her body.
Even here, so far away from London, the King has reached into their home and stolen away their happiness.
The entire household gathers in the courtyard to say goodbye and Madge tries her best to play the prim and proper lady, her heart weeping inside her chest. The Duke kneels before his Duchess to receive her wife's blessing and Madge tells herself everything will be okay. There is a special magic in a wife's blessing, a power that will surely keep her father safe. He stands when it's done and Madge's mother presses a delicately embroidered handkerchief into his hand, a token to carry with him through the fight to come. He holds it briefly against his heart and then kisses her hand, eyes staring deeply into hers.
Madge sees tears in her mother's eyes but they do not fall and Madge swears she will be just as strong. Her father turns to her and as much as she wants to throw herself on him in a hug, she knows she can't. That isn't how a lady is meant to behave herself.
"I will pray for your victory and speedy return," Madge vows and he smiles, eyes wet.
"I will be grateful for it," he replies and Madge knows the time has come. He shares one last look with both her and her mother and then he swings up onto his horse. A squire hands him his helmet and he looks just like a fairy tail knight. Those men always triumph and so will he. Madge believes that, she has to.
"Godspeed," her mother says in a trembling voice and then they ride off, a long line of horses pouring out of the castle grounds. They are not off to slay a dragon, but other English men and Madge is not sure she understands that, is not sure she ever will. She grabs onto her mother's skirt and already, she is praying.
Come home soon, Papa.
Come back safe.
Madge cannot sleep that night, her head filled with terrible thoughts so she creeps past her sleeping nurse and out into the hall. Everything seems sharper, harsher tonight, every item of furniture and brazier on the wall. There is unseasonal ice in the air and Madge tiptoes to her parents' bedchamber, heart hammering in her throat. She sneaks inside, past sleeping ladies and stops by her parents' huge bed and finds her mother awake, her eyes luminous in the dark.
"Come here, sunshine," she whispers and Madge clambers up into the big bed and under the covers. Her mother pulls her close and rests her chin on the top of Madge's head.
"Papa will be home soon. You must believe that."
Madge nods. "I do, Mama, I promise."
She wraps her own arms around her mother, breathes in her comforting scent.
Papa will be home soon she repeats as she drifts off to sleep.
Soon
Three weeks later, a guard posted on lookout duty hollers into the courtyard.
"Our Lord of Bedford is returning!"
Madge hears him through a window and drops the book she's meant to be reading, happiness bursting inside her.
"My lady!" her tutor tries to scold but Madge is already running from the room. She tears down corridors and up stairs and crashes through a door out onto the guard wall. She clutches the stone and peeks through the parapets, standing up on her tip toes. There, out beyond the castle walls, she can see them, a train of men and horses, waving a white banner above their heads, one blazoned with the silver Bedford Bell.
Her father is home.
The household gathers outside to welcome their victorious lord home, relief making them giddy.
Great cheers rise up as the knights and soldiers ride into the courtyard, their armor gleaming in the sunlight, and ladies wave handkerchiefs and scraps of lace at them, white ribbons tied in their hair to match their lord's banner. The men toss up their hats in joy and Madge stands with her mother, her own hair filled with ribbons and a solid silver Bedford Bell pinned to her kirtle. There are less men returning than left, but at the head of them is the Duke of Bedford, weary but whole. Madge feels her knees wobble and can barely keep her face straight, a smile dangerously close to breaking through.
Her father pulls off his helmet and hands it to a squire, his dismount slower than usual. There is a heaviness in his bones that gives Madge pause, scratching at the back of her mind. Something isn't right. He walks towards them and they curtsy, Madge's a bit clumsy with glee and apprehension. She looks up at his eyes as she stands and her excitement is stomped down by what lingers there, something foreboding and melancholy.
"Congratulations on your triumph, my lord husband. We will have a great feast to celebrate," her mother says and the tired soldiers give a hearty cheer. Her father smiles but it doesn't light up his face like it's supposed to, looks more strained than it should. Madge bites her lip, worry eating away at her happiness and her mother clearly senses something is wrong too, her eyes narrowing as she looks at her husband.
"I will have a bath drawn for you," she tells him and he nods gratefully. Madge wonders why she doesn't ask what's wrong, but perhaps proper ladies aren't meant to do that either. Her father offers his arm and her mother takes it, the two of them leading the household back inside.
Servants rush about to prepare and Madge tracks her parents with her eyes as they move farther away, up to the privacy of their bedchamber. There is something going on here. Madge knows she should head to her chamber to get ready, but instead she ducks away from her nurse and follows discreetly behind her parents. She is quiet and their posture is tense, confirming her suspicions. There is a secret her father is keeping, a terrible, awful one.
But what could it be?
(are you sure you want to know?)
They enter their bedchamber and Madge presses her ear to the door, their words slightly muffled but still understandable.
"So you suppressed the rebellion, then?"
"Yes, but something was very clear as we rode across the country. This isn't over. There will be others, many others. I fear we will soon be at war."
Madge gasps and pulls away from the door. There is a clatter from the other side, someone having dropped something but Madge barely hears it, heart tumbling over itsef in her chest.
Will they never be allowed to live in peace? Will the King's shadow haunt them forever?
(yes, yes, yes)
(Madge wonders if it is a sin to hate her king)
(but perhaps it was not God who set him on the throne, perhaps it was the Devil himself)
When Madge is eleven, she learns of her own claim to the throne.
King Coriolanus is her great uncle, they share a common ancestor in King Henry IV. She falls in the line of succession after the King's son Cato (her cousin once removed) and her own mother (the King's niece).
(this then, explains why the King knows her mother, why he showered honours on them)
(her stomach does queasy somersaults at the thought)
Madge does not have any expectations of being Queen, knows that Prince Cato will surely marry and have children, will push her farther and farther away from the throne. It will, on the other hand, improve her options of marriage, this blood tie to kings. And that is all Madge thinks she can do for her family, marry well.
(she is wrong)
(but why, Madge can't help but ask herself, why did her parents keep this monumental relation a secret for so long?)
(but then she remembers rolling heads and puddles of blood and maybe she knows the answer)
"You are growing into quite the young woman, Lady Madge," her nurse tells her as the tailor fits her for a new gown. Madge beams.
"I wager suitors will be lining up outside the castle walls any day now," her nurse continues and Madge blushes at the thought. She thinks she would like a husband, one who was brave and handsome and would love her forever and ever. They would live near her parents and have a very large family and always be happy, until the very day they died. He would wear her favor into battle and fight every tournament in her name. She swoons just at the fanciful imagining of it, like a fairytale come to life. Her nurse chuckles softly.
"It won't be for some years, dear, so don't get too excited."
"Why not? I'm almost old enough," she points out and her nurse nods.
"Indeed, but your lord father and lady mother aren't so keen to see you packed off and wedded until you're still a bit older. In fact, they told the Duke of Exeter just that."
Madge doesn't actually want to get married just yet, would much rather stay with her parents, but her nurse's tidbit of gossip puts hooks into her imagination.
"The Duke of Exeter wishes to marry me?"
Her nurse snorts.
"Goodness, no! He already has a wife. He wanted you for his son and heir, Henry, the Earl of Huntingdon."
Madge bites her lip and ponders this new information.
"And what is this Henry like?" she asks and her nurse turns thoughtful.
"I reckon he's about fourteen and quite tall from what I've heard. They say his father is rather handsome, so he might be as well."
Madge drifts off into thought. Henry Holland, Earl of Huntingdon and future Duke of Exeter. Tall, fourteen and potentially quite handsome. In her eleven year old mind, he sounds perfect.
"Now don't go getting any ideas, the Duke and Duchess have already said you're too young to wed him," her nurse reminds her and Madge nods.
"It is no matter, he will wait for me," she decides, because of course he will. The charming boy in her mind would wait a lifetime for his lady love. Her nurse shakes her head but Madge pays her no mind.
Lady Madge Holland, Duchess of Exeter.
It sounds lovely.
Riots rise up again, just as her father predicted, but this time in Devonshire.
Madge watches her father ride away and waves her handkerchief after him, praying for his safe return. Her mother stands by her side and squeezes her shoulder, tears glittering on her cheeks in the golden sunlight.
They do not ride out with her father, but they do fight battles, against despair, waiting, the agony of not knowing.
At least her father has a sword to beat back his enemies.
Madge has only herself.
Madge takes to practising her letter writing skills, imagines beautiful love notes passed between herself and her future husband, the ever enchanting Henry Holland. It does not matter that she has never met him, because her imagination has long ago run away from her, caught up in pretty, romantic dreams.
As their parents hammer out all the boring legal details of their marriage, Henry and she will spend their courtship taking long walks in the garden, writing letters and playing cards by the fire. His lips will linger against her hand when he kisses it, his eyes will seek her out across the room and they will dance every dance together. He will whisper sweet words into her ear, promises of a lifetime of joy and love.
She blushes, skin heating up and buries her face in her pillow in embarrassment. How silly he would think her if he knew! But still, girlish hopes of love and marital bliss keep her mind from drifting to her father in battle, to his bloody body strewn out across some war torn field. She must have hope for tomorrow, it is what her father would want.
One day, all these rebellions and riots will be over.
One day, her father will give her to Henry in marriage and they will all live happily ever after.
One day.
She and her mother are breaking their fast when a messenger arrives bearing news from her father.
Madge stops eating immediately, stomach too excited for food, and eagerly looks over what he's brought. There is a crate, a small box tied with a cord and two letters sealed with her father's crest. The messenger bows to her mother and presents her with the letters, his hair swept back by the wind.
"From His Grace the Duke of Bedford, milady," he says and her mother takes the two letters with a smile.
"My thanks, good sir," she tells him and offers him a few coins as a tip. "You are welcome to stop by the kitchens for food and drink and I will have my Constable tend to your horse."
He bows again, cap clutched to his chest and their Steward shows him out. Madge leans over the table to get a better look at the letters, both addressed in her father's hand. On the first is written To My Dear Duchess and Sweet Daughter and Madge thrills at the sight. The second says For My Most Beloved Margaret and Madge imagines it must be a love note, filled with romance and she can't help but dream of the days she'll receive one from her own husband. Her mother breaks the seal on the first and pulls out the letter, Madge vibrating with anticipation.
"To my Dear Duchess Margaret and Sweet Daughter Madge,
We have stopped to sup at the Duke of Exeter's castle and we are joined as well by the Earl of Oxford (Anne's father! Madge thinks with a jolt). I think you would both like it here very much, for they have the grandest gardens I have seen outside of Windsor. Exeter says his son Henry spends most of his time exploring the grounds and climbing trees, to the eternal vexation of his lady mother.
Exeter also bid me take a crate of spirits he has been sent from France, claiming, of course, that he merely thinks we might enjoy them. I would guess his constant talk of Henry and the spirits have an ulterior motive, though it would be rude to say so, or to refuse such a generous gift (her mother interrupts her reading to laugh, shaking her head). As such, I have taken the liberty of accepting them and have sent them along with the messenger. Perhaps we may use them to toast my return (her mother laughs again and Madge can imagine her father's tone as if he were speaking the words himself and the smile that would grace his lips)?
Speaking of gifts and young Henry, he has sent something along for you, my Madge. It is in the other package and I swear I have no idea what it might be (Madge's heart does back flips, a silly, overjoyed smile breaking out over her face).
We are planning to spend the night here and ride out on the morrow, which is why I have the time to write. Oxford has spent the evening challenging me to cards, but he is nowhere near your level, Madge dear, and so I have been beating him handily. Exeter's wife, Lady Anne, is much admiring of your needlework, Margaret darling, and has made me swear a hundred times to relay her compliments to you as she has spent the night gushing over the purse and handkerchief you made me. Of course, this may also have to do with those ulterior motives mentioned earlier.
It is late and I should rest, but I confess I would much rather stay up writing. I won't though, I know how you would scold, sweetheart. I will be rested for tomorrow, as you would insist.
I wish most heartily that all this was over and I was with you both, but know that I think of you often and pray you are well.
With all my love, your most devoted husband and father,
Joseph, Duke of Bedford
written this day may eighth of the year fourteen sixty four in the Duke of Exeter's castle of Rougemont."
Madge's heart is warm from her father's words but there is also a knot of shivering excitement in her chest at the thought of what Henry Holland might have sent her. She looks to her mother for permission and the Duchess frowns but nods, clearly not pleased at boys sending Madge gifts.
Madge eagerly pulls the package towards her, barely even registering her mother's watchful gaze. She carefully unties the cord around it and lifts the lid, her heart pounding as loud as a giant's footsteps. Inside the box is a folded note and she takes it with shaking hands, romantic dreams swirling in her blood. She unfolds it and her eyes take in the the hastily scrawled message, the first tangible part of Henry she's ever encountered. She doesn't read it aloud as her mother did the letter from her father, wants this to belong just to her and Henry.
Lady Madge,
Your father has come to stay with us and I hope he will give this to you. My lord father says we might one day be married, and so I would like you to have this token of my esteem. I bought it from a traveling merchant, who promises it once adorned the hand of a foreign princess.
I liked it because it reminded me of outside, which is where I spend most of my time. If I had a choice, I think I would spend all my days and nights outdoors. Would you marry a man who lived in the woods?
I hope you like my gift and fare thee well,
Henry Holland, Earl of Huntingdon
It is not gushingly romantic and yet it might as well be, Madge feeling like she's skipped right over the moon. She holds it against her chest and sighs, her mother watching her with a fondly exasperated smile.
"You look feverish, love, and you have not even seen his present," she points out and Madge startles back to the moment. Again, bright hot excitement courses through her and she peers into the box, gasping aloud at what she finds. It is a ring made of gold with a silver flower on the band, the center set with a tiny pearl. Madge cradles it in her hands and is fairly certain she has never seen anything more lovely. She slips in onto her finger and swears right then that she will never take it off, not as long as she lives.
Thank you Henry, she thinks, heart on fire.
I will treasure it always
That night her dreams are filled with Henry, dashing, charming Henry who sweeps her right off her feet. But better than any dream is the thought that one day it will all be real, Henry loving her in life and not just fantasy.
She hugs the hand bearing his ring to her heart and plans out her return note in her head, cannot wait to put it all to paper.
Oh Henry, Henry, Henry, how lucky I am to have you.
Her father returns a victor, but he looks exhausted, the beginnings of an ugly red scar visible at the edge of his collar.
"Mercy, Joseph, what happened?" her mother fusses as squires help him remove all his armor. They peel back the layers and Madge hisses in shock at the twisting injury on her father's chest, long, deep and startlingly crimson. Her mother presses her fingertips to it in worry, her face awash in terrifying what-could-have-beens.
"I am alright," her husband assures her and takes hold of her hand, pressing it against his beating heart. "We were caught off guard, we were not expecting so many."
Madge clasps her hands and closes her eyes, the thought of losing her father making her head swim and her stomach roll.
"They almost got the better of us."
Her mother inhales sharply and her father's face turns dark and stormy, sorrow drawing heavy lines on his face.
"It was terrible," he murmurs, lost in some awful memory, "the Duke of Exeter's young son, Henry, snuck after us, eager to follow his father into battle. The rebels cut him down right before his father's eyes."
Madge does not hear anything else her father says, her head connecting with the stone floor as she collapses.
Madge spends a whole day laid up in bed, but it is not her head that ails her, not nearly as much as her heart does.
The physician tends to her, her parents hovering worriedly nearby but Madge barely takes note of any of them, sobbing as she mourns the boy she never met but could have loved. Henry Holland, Earl of Huntingdon who would now never be Duke of Exeter. Her dreams all fall to shambles, victims of the cruelty of King Coriolanus' England.
There is no childhood here, no innocence.
Just death and blood and ruin.
(poor, sweet Henry)
(even in all the decades to come, Madge will never forget this boy who never grew up)
(in the wars of Kings, the innocent are often forgotten. Madge vows to keep their names alive)
The halls are filled with whispers now, of the treachery of the rebels, the unrestrained violence of these riotous citizens. Maids and cooks pass words behind their hands, say this is the Devil's work, that God will lay a curse down on their wretched souls.
Madge cannot deny they are evil, horrid people, young Henry Holland rising like a specter in the back of her mind. What kind of monster would someone have to be to cut down a young boy, still so bright and full of life?
But if the rebels are doing the Devil's work and the King is the demon haunting her nightmares, what does that mean for England?
Are all of them cursed? Has their Heavenly Father abandoned them?
(one look at the atrocities committed here and the answer is obvious)
(yes)
Madge wanders garden paths and plucks spring blossoms from their stems.
She carries them to the top of the grassy hill at the edge of the grounds, the one her nurse used to whisper belonged to fairy kings. The world still glistens from the morning's rainfall and her boots sink into the soft earth, the hem of her dress trailing in the mud. She kneels down and doesn't feel the cool wetness of the ground as it seeps through her layers of skirt, her mind focused entirely on her task.
She ties sweet smelling flowers into wreaths and drapes them over a large, mossy boulder, one too large for any man to move. Her hand reaches into the pouch hanging from her girdle and pulls out the diamond she'd smuggled from her mother's coffer of jewels, running her thumb over it's smooth edges. She remembers being told diamonds are harder than stone and so she takes her stolen gem and carves into the boulder, her hand cramping from clutching the diamond so tight. It takes longer than she'd thought it would, dusk starting to kiss the clouds by the time she's done, but Madge looks at her work and though she is too raw to smile, she still feels proud. Carved in this boulder, forever and ever and ever, is just one name, shaky and squiggly but legible.
Henry.
She is sure his family has buried him with full pomp in a magnificent tomb, but Madge remembers his letter and wants him to be outside forever, just like he'd wished.
Let his spirit rest here on this fairy hill, chasing endless adventures.
Let him be young and carefree and laughing for eternity.
Madge twists his ring off her finger and holds it in the palm of her hand, a soft breeze blowing petals off the wreaths she'd left for him. They swirl through the air and down the hill, bright and colourful, just like she imagines Henry would have been.
She digs a hole with her free hand, dirt clumping under her nails and sullying her sleeve. She places his letter inside, gently covers it with earth and pats it down, safely burying it below the ground. She says a final prayer, his ring held between her hands and looks up at the sky, the sun meeting the stars against a pink and purple canvas.
"Rest well, Henry," she whispers and hopes her words float up to the heavens themselves.
(she knows it is just her imagination, but for one brief moment, she could swear she hears a voice, young and full of boyish cheer)
(i will)
The only sound in the schoolroom is the scratching of Madge's quill as she works on her Latin. Her tutor sits at the front of the room, reading quietly to himself and Madge works diligently, will broker no mistakes. Latin is the only one of her languages that she struggles with and she is determined to get this translation right, wants to surprise her parents at dinner tonight with how far she's come.
Her concentration is broken by a clatter of hooves outside and even though she knows she'll receive a scolding for it, Madge hurries over to the window. A messenger rides through the courtyard and just as she dreaded, he sports the King's badge, a crowned wolf she has learned to despise.
"Lady Madge," her tutor says sternly, demanding she return to her seat.
"It is a messenger from the King," she whispers. "It is rebellion again, isn't it?"
Her tutor doesn't answer but that's alright, he doesn't need to.
Dinner is a somber, hurried affair, the castle filled with urgent preparations for her father's ride to help crush yet another revolt against the King. He shovels down his food and Madge's eyes bounce anxiously between her parents. Her mother's skin is ashy, her face drawn and her lips pressed into a tight line. She does not touch her supper and Madge feels as if her own appetite has run off, her throat far too dry to swallow anything at all. Her father takes a last gulp of wine and sets down his goblet with a thunk.
"I need to get going, we want to rendezvous with Pembroke before tomorrow night," he tells them and pushes out his chair. Madge feels pulled tight all over, stretched so thin she might snap. Every goodbye is worse than the last and she wants to beg him not to go, would get down on her knees and clutch at his legs if she thought it would do any good.
"I cannot take this anymore," her mother moans, swaying in her seat. Her husband hurries over to her in alarm and Madge is too frightened to move, the world crumbling around her ears.
"Shall I send for the physician?" her father asks, voice distressed and Madge tries to swallow around a lump in her throat.
"What is the point? A physician cannot cure me."
The Duke looks at his wife in confusion. "Whyever not? What ails you, my love?"
"These rebellions! You, running off to keep the King on his throne!"
Madge watches her father recoil in shock and she cannot help but feel it too, has never heard her parents exchange even one harsh word in all her life.
"He is our sovereign lord, I have no choice but to obey his commands," her father says, tone still lilted through with confusion.
"You've said it yourself, these riots won't end, not until the entire country is at war! The people hate him! How long will you fight his battles, beating back his enemies while he sits safe in his palaces?"
The Duchess' face is red and flushed, her breathing heavy and she looks so winded and out of breath from so little conversation it makes Madge want to weep.
"He is my King, and your uncle!" her father snaps back, voice raised in a way Madge has never heard, a kernel of fear rooting in her stomach.
"Exactly! I have grown up haunted by his shadow! We both know what sort of man he is better than anyone! Would you die for him, leave us forever, just to keep him on his throne?"
Madge wants to close her ears from the shouting, hates the King all over again for tearing apart her family.
"What would you have me do, Margaret?" her father demands, anger turning his neck and ears bright red. "Abandon my oaths? Fall in with the rebels? Loose everything we have and have my head put on a spike on Tower Hill?"
Her mother doesn't answer, eyes narrowed into slits and chest heaving.
"That is treason, Margaret," the Duke pronounces, voice so grave Madge feels like she's climbed into a bath of ice. Her mother holds his gaze for a few moments more and then collapses in her chair like a popped soap bubble.
"You're right of course," she whispers and the anger seems to drain out of her husband, "he is God's anointed King, we owe him our loyalty."
Madge watches her father nod and return to his wife's side, taking her limp hand between both of his.
"And we are bound to him by blood, no one will ever forget that."
Her parents share a look, one steeped in hopelessness and it's what they aren't saying, the undercurrent in their words that scares Madge worse than anything they have said.
If the King loses, they shall all be condemned right alongside him.
The physician decides her mother must be conveyed straight to bed despite her protests and so her husband carries her upstairs to their bedchamber, Madge trailing after them.
"I am well enough to see you off, Joseph," Margaret insists as he lays her down gently on their great bed.
"There is no shame in being ill, darling. Rest and be well again," he murmurs, fingers stroking her hair. Her mother struggles up onto her elbows and her dress slips slightly, exposing a frightfully thin shoulder. Madge flinches in shock. How had she not noticed how thin her mother was becoming, what a toll her bouts of sickness were taking?
"I have been ailing since the day I was born, Joseph, we both know I shall never be well. But I am not an invalid, I am the mistress of this house and I will see you and the men off." She tries to fill her voice with steel but it is threaded though with weakness instead. Outside these castle walls or within them, it seems there are always threats to ravage Madge's happiness.
"Don't go, Mama," she begs, dropping to her knees at her mother's bedside with fear in her heart. She clutches her mother's hand and she can see the surrender in her eyes. The Duchess lies back against her pillows and folds into them, looks so much older and frailer than her thirty one years.
"I shall be back soon. I love you," her father says and kisses her mother's forehead. Margaret nods tiredly and Madge bites her lip to fight back tears. Her father smiles at her and lifts her chin with his hand.
"Be brave, sweet Madge. All will be well again soon."
Madge squeezes closed her eyes and nods. "I will be, Papa, I promise," she says, sobs catching in her throat.
"I know you will."
He presses a kiss to the top of her head and then he's gone, tears slithering out from beneath her eyelids and down her cheeks. Her mother squeezes her hand and Madge holds her father warm in her heart.
I shall be brave Papa, the very bravest
Madge's favourite story has always been that of King Arthur, the brave, good king who will rise again to save them in their darkest hour.
Whenever times get rough, she has always comforted herself with the thought that he hasn't returned yet, that whatever she thinks is so terrible, isn't truly so horrid. If it really were, King Arthur would've come to save them.
(of course, if he hasn't come yet, if this isn't bad enough to call him back, that means something even worse is in store)
(even her heroes conjure nightmares now)
Her father returns victorious, the King's forces once again triumphant.
How long, Madge wonders, how long will this continue?
(forever and ever and ever)
(Madge is twelve when she learns of the other claim to the throne, the one no one speaks of)
(at least not out loud)
(He is Finnick Odair, Earl of Richmond, but the word bastard haunts his name, on either side of his family tree.
His mother is a descendant of Edward III, just like Madge, just like King Coriolanus himself. John of Gaunt, son of Edward III and father to Madge's great grandfather Henry IV, had several children by his mistress Katherine Swynford, all born out of wedlock, but legitimized once John and Katherine married. From these once bastard children comes the line that leads to Lord Finnick's mother, the Lady Alma.
Lord Finnick's father, meanwhile, is the half brother of King Coriolanus, born of the same mother but different fathers. The stain of illegitimacy lies in the dispute over whether King Coriolanus' mother, the Dowager Queen, ever actually married the servant man to whom she bore so many children, including Lord Finnick's father)
(this boy, a handful of years older than Madge, is never openly acknowledged as a potential heir, even with royal blood flowing through his veins)
(it does not matter though, because he will never see the throne. Prince Cato would have to die without heir, as would Madge and her mother before Finnick Odair of Richmond could call himself King)
(and Madge is sure there is little chance of that)
Madge is safe in Bedford Castle but she is no longer ignorant of the upheaval in England.
Messengers bring evil tidings every day, a list of dead men and burned cities. The kingdom is fracturing, splintering and the King's idea of order is to continue the killing, to put down the riots with as much brutality as he can manage. He could build fortresses from the bones of his victims and rage sweeps through England, bright and hot, setting the entire country aflame.
The people of England hate their King.
(Madge cannot blame them)
There is only one way to douse this inferno and it is a crime no one would ever be brave enough to say, not even in a whisper.
(regicide)
Madge lays flowers by her makeshift memorial for Henry and no longer fools herself into believing she'd loved him. She might have, in another life, but in this one he was just a name, not even a face. She does not love him, but still she mourns him, his life snuffed out far too quickly.
Fourteen year old boys should never die, but certainly not by the sword. Was he frightened? Did he suffer? She closes her eyes and prays that his soul is at rest, that he has found peace in the hereafter.
Poor Henry, she thinks, to be remembered as nothing but a victim, a child murdered in cold blood. If history will recall his name, it will be as a footnote, just one of many tragedies blooming across England in these tempestuous years. He deserves better in death as he did in life, but he will not get it. No one will.
If life has taught her anything, it is that nothing is fair and no one receives what they deserve. Perhaps the Lord is testing them or perhaps the Devil has wrested England away from him and torments them for sport.
It matters little.
Madge cannot change it, she must merely try and survive it.
(here is another secret she learns, this time at thirteen.
The Duke of York is a distant cousin of King Coriolanus and thus of her as well. They all descend from King Edward III and there are whispers and echoes that maybe, just maybe, the Duke of York is the rightful King of England.
King Coriolanus' father, King Henry IV, usurped the throne from his cousin Richard II. His reasons, of course, were that Richard was a tyrant, a monster, unfit to rule.
True or not, he has set a precedent.
Even God's anointed King is not safe, is not untouchable.
Worse, some believe the Duke of York has a better claim to the throne than King Coriolanus, as he is descended from Edward III's second son, while the King is descended from his third son.
Madge tries to tell herself it doesn't matter, after all, no one would ever depose a king)
(then again, that's how all this started)
The world around her always feels like walking over eggshells, fragile and delicate, about to fall to pieces any moment. Everyone's nerves are rubbed raw and her mother is always ill with migraines, skin ashy and body weak. Her father loses weight, his clothes hanging off his frame and his hair starts to thin, dark circles blooming under his eyes. No one sleeps right, pressure and worry building on their shoulders, ready to explode.
Madge feels like rats have taken residence in her stomach, clawed feet scrabbling along her insides. She prays for respite, for her parents' health but still the days seem to grow darker, the menace of rebellion stalking every man, woman and child in England.
They cannot go on this way, something must be done.
(and here it comes)
Madge wears the loveliest gown of violet silk, dripping in gold and amethysts, pearls and diamonds. Fragile lace veils cascade down from her hennin and all eyes are on her in the middle of the dancefloor, the handsomest man in all of England bent over and kissing her hand. His lips are warm and soft, butterflies fluttering deliciously in her stomach.
He stands and Madge looks down at her hand, a smear of blood left behind from his mouth. She frowns, something cold and horrible settling inside of her. She raises her head and screams.
Screams and screams and screams.
Henry Holland stands before her, throat slit and body broken, head and limbs bent at odd angles.
She stumbles away in horror and arms catch her, her back landing against someone's chest. She twists around and cannot even scream, terror clogging her throat.
It is her father, his eyes plucked out and the skin of his face pecked away by crows. He smells fetid and rotting, glistening bones visible and Madge scrambles away from him, heart stampeding as she tries to escape.
She sprints down the hall but her feet trip over her skirts and she falls, the ground catching her and swallowing her up. She starts to sink into it and when she looks up, desperate for help, she finds only the King, dripping with blood and cackling wildly.
The Duke of York comes up behind him, swinging a heavy ax and Madge closes her eyes, feels something hot splash across her cheeks. She opens her eyes and looks right into her King's, open and lifeless.
Madge screams, no sound leaving her throat and no one comes to save her.
No one at all.
Madge is fourteen when war erupts across England.
It's a mild morning in September of 1467 and she is working on her embroidery, is determined to successfully capture a bird in thread. Her mother reads beside her, the other household ladies gossiping quietly. Their peaceful scene is interrupted by one of her father's squires barging into the room, the same one who used to dance with Madge so long ago.
The door crashes against the stone wall, the ladies gasp in scandalized shock and Madge pricks herself with her needle, scarlet blood dripping onto the pale lavender of her dress. She hisses in pain and looks up at Bristel in reproach but the frenzied look in his eyes makes her rebuke dry up in her throat.
"My lady," he pants, red faced and Madge's mother looks at him with feverish eyes.
"What is it?" she whispers, colour sliding out of her face.
"War, your grace, England is at war."
England has erupted, split down the middle by two powerful men.
The Duke of York has declared the King a tyrant, has deemed him oppressive, cruel, unfit to lead England and her people. Nobles flock to his rebellion, including his brother-in-law the Earl of Salisbury and his nephew the Earl of Warwick. They seek to remove King Coriolanus from power and place the Duke of York there instead, backed by his own claim to the throne, Edward III's royal blood pumping through his veins.
King Coriolanus retaliates, his own army rising to meet this would-be-usurper.
The clash, when it comes, will be devastating.
For so many, for so long.
(for Madge)
The Duke of Bedford is called to arms, summoned to prove his loyalty to his King.
Madge and her family are Lancastrians, as the King's supporters are called, not by choice but by blood, and Madge's father gathers as many men as he can to ride out and meet his king. Madge watches him as he prepares to leave, looking small in his gleaming silver armor and hates the Duke of York. She does not know him, has barely met him but he has brought war to England, has dragged her loved ones into bloody conflict.
(there is a small voice though, one that whispers of the fear in London, the chill in Westminster)
(perhaps the Duke of York is on to something)
Her mother is too ill to see the men off, so Madge stands in the courtyard as lady of the house, keeps her back as straight as she can. She wants to grab hold of her father's reins, refuse to let go until he agrees to stay behind but she doesn't, has been raised with Bedford bravery in her heart, will make her father proud.
His eyes are wet as she ties her mother's handkerchief to his gauntlet, a wife's token to keep him safe. He kisses her cheek as the wind picks up, the cold cutting through her skin.
"Take care, my Madge," he whispers.
"And you father," she replies, voice shaking.
He mounts his horse and he looks so pale in the watery sunlight. The ground shivers as the men take off, a thunder of hooves and Madge stays in the courtyard long after they've gone, holds herself tight as tears stain her cheeks.
Come back father, please come back.
Life continues in Bedford Castle, news few and far between.
Madge stares out the windows as the weather grows colder, tries to catch a glimpse of a rider bearing some sort of message, some update on the state of England, but always, there is no one.
Madge's fingers are clumsy at her needlework, her eyes blurry as she tries to read her books, her hands limp as she attempts to play her instruments. She cannot concentrate, lives in a state of frigid fear. The world outside is a mystery, one she is desperate to unravel.
How goes the war? Who is winning? Losing? And what of my father?
Madge needs to know, just as she dreads finding out.
"There must be something we can do," Madge says for the thousandth time and her mother sighs, setting down her embroidery.
"I have told you darling, there is nothing we can do but pray. Pray for your father and the King, that they will be safe and victorious. We must trust in the Lord."
It is the same speech she has given every time Madge has asked and just like always, it does little to soothe Madge's nerves. Her mother's ladies-in-waiting share looks of pity and Madge bristles, determines right then that she will find something useful to do.
"May I be excused?" she asks and her mother blinks before sighing again.
"Yes, Madge, you may."
Madge curtsies and turns in a whirl of skirts, desperate to be out of this stifling room, desperate to be doing something. She slips from her mother's solar and leans back against the closed door, at a loss for what that something might be. Think, she tells herself, there must be something...
She pushes off from the door and moves across the hall to the window. She leans against it and looks out at the castle grounds, but it is the same view as always, empty and without a rider bearing news. The wind picks up and Madge's eyes catch on a pennant at the top of one of the turrets as it whips in the breeze. It is a fraying white with her father's badge, the silver Bedford Bell, upon it and Madge feels inspiration burn into her fingertips.
She gathers up her skirts and runs down the hall, dodging scandalized chamber maids and shocked page boys as she goes. Her satin slippers nearly flap off but Madge doesn't slow, feels excitement thrusting her forward. She careens through an oak door and arrives in a store room piled high with silks and velvets, brocade and cloth of gold. Reams and reams of fabric, yards and yards of material and Madge falls upon them like a starving man on a fresh pile of vegetables. She picks through crates and boxes, desperate to find the perfect piece.
Yes!
She drags out a roll of white silk, cool and soft to the touch. Perfect! She will need thread, red for Lancaster Roses and silver for a Bedford Bell. She will make a banner, with a border of red roses and a great big bell in the middle. She will proclaim her loyalties to the world, show them all the proof of her faith. She will hang it up on the castle walls so everyone will know who they are, who she prays for, who she sends her every ounce of courage to.
This will be a banner to welcome her victorious father home, one to hold all her hopes. Madge hugs the roll of fabric to her chest.
No more idle hands, I'll be useful.
You will have the very best homecoming Father, I swear.
Madge is diligent in her work, measuring and cutting and designing.
There is still no word from the front but she no longer yearns for it with the same intensity, her mind focused and her hands busy. Her banner comes along and she plans out the celebration they will have when her father returns home. What food they'll eat, what decorations they'll hang and what needs to be cleaned, polished and refurbished.
The Yorkists can fight and even win as many battles as they want. They cannot take Madge's hope and it will never falter or fade. The Duke of Bedford will return.
Madge will never let go of that.
In December, news finally arrives.
It is the worst winter Madge can remember, bitterly cold and heavily coated in snow. The courier who brings word is nearly blue and half dead when he collapses on their doorstep, the words quivering as they leave his bleeding lips.
The Duke of York is dead.
He and his brother-in-law the Earl of Salisbury have been slain at the Battle of Wakefield, the snow stained red with the blood of countless dead. The routed army has fled, the King is victorious.
Madge sighs in relief. It is over.
(if only)
But then a whisper.
A whisper goes out that the war is not over, that the Yorkists still intend to fight.
The Earl of Warwick is still standing, a new Earl of Salisbury, Gale, only sixteen, has risen to take his father's place and most shocking of all, the Duke of York's eldest child has taken up his claim.
Not a son, for he had none, but a daughter, Lady Katniss of York.
People shake their heads, scoff, for that cannot be true. These whispers must be wrong.
(they aren't)
Madge embroiders with vehemence, her needle like a sword and this banner her war. She cannot fight by her father's side, has no idea how to use a sword. She is not Lady Katniss of York (if she even exists), but Madge is still brave, will fight in the only way she knows how.
Every day and night, she and the entire household get down on their knees and pray, for the safety of their lord and victory for their cause. Madge stitches and stitches, will boldly show her colours to the world. She is a Bedford, they are Lancastrians and she will not hide, will pour every ounce of love and courage she has into this banner. Let this be a testament to her belief, to her faith in God and her father. Let any strength she possesses carry to him and make him mighty. Madge cannot fight with spear and shield, cannot ride out into battle for those she loves, but that does not mean she is helpless.
She will keep the home fires burning, she will pray, she will believe.
Let the Yorkists come, she thinks, let them come. I will not yield or bend or break. I may have no sword or shield, so I shall become them myself.
Come Yorkists, and have a taste of Bedford steel.
1467 becomes 1468 and in February fortune turns over, shattering Madge's fragile hope that this war is over, that her father will soon return to them.
Lady Katniss of York, real and bent on vengeance, and her cousin the Earl of Salisbury lead their armies in the Battle of Mortimer's Cross and win a decisive victory, prove themselves deadly and capable. The Lancastrian army is devastated and the King's half-brother, Lord Boggs, Earl of Pembroke, is forced to flee for his life.
The tides have turned.
(but Madge's hope is not shattered for long)
(she picks up every shard and piece and puts it back together again)
(she cannot command an army)
(instead, she shall destroy the Yorkists with the force of her convictions)
(the good shall triumph, her father will return)
(that is a promise)
Madge lies awake at night and thinks of Katniss of York.
This girl, only a few years older than Madge, has done the impossible. She rides to war in full armor, rallies troops behind her. She keeps the cause of York alive, no, she does more, she turns York into an unstoppable force, takes them to victory and victory and victory.
It is unnatural, some of her mother's ladies say but Madge wonders if that is really quite as true as everyone believes. There is a fire in her chest, one that burns hotter than any hearth and if Madge knew how, she would charge to war, vanquish enemies, bring her father home safe.
She and Katniss of York are both warriors, just of a different kind.
(even still, they are enemies too)
February continues, dreary and darker with every passing day.
There is a somber air in Bedford Castle and joy flees from their long faces and terror of defeat. Katniss of York is a chilling specter, far more effective than her father ever was, bolstered by the Earl of Warwick and the new, young Earl of Salisbury.
Isolated and trapped in this castle as they are, the Bedford household knows only that Katniss of York inspires loyalty wherever she goes, crushes Lancastrian forces like they might an ant. Hope is a delicate thing and Madge can tell by the faces around her that most here have had theirs broken, shattered and destroyed. It is only a matter of time they think but don't say. Soon, the Yorkists will kills us all.
Madge won't surrender so easily.
She puts the finishing touches on her banner, ties off the last silver thread. She instructs some men to hang it above the castle gate and dares the Yorkists to try and take this keep.
Let them come, she thinks, we will not fall.
We are Bedfords and proud.
We are Lancastrians.
We are ready.
It is not the Yorkists who come, but Bristel the squire.
Madge has some grooms carry her mother outside, hopes the fresh air with do her well. They set up in the garden, the Duchess wrapped snugly in layers and layers of blankets and furs. They won't stay long, the winter cold, but being cooped all day cannot be helping her mother strengthen. Madge reads aloud to her mother from Chaucer while the other ladies take to their needlework, each one pretending everything is fine and fear does not haunt their every hour.
(but oh, it does)
They have only been out for a handful of minutes when loud shouts come from the direction of the gate, the clamor soon drowning out Madge's voice. She closes the book and rests it in her lap, nails digging into the soft leather cover. Is it news? Or the Yorkists come to burn us to the ground? The ladies stop their stitching, faces turning white and Madge knows they are thinking as she is, wondering if death has come to find them.
They do not have to wonder for long.
Bristel comes galloping into the garden, grooms and guards streaming after him. His horse leaps over a low hedge to crash into their midst, hooves trampling all over the Duchess' flowerbeds. The ladies shriek in terror and Madge jumps up and knocks her chair back, the book clutched tight against her chest. Her mother lifts her head to look at him as he tumbles off his horse, haste evident in every move of his muscles and he hurries into a bow.
"Are you mad?" bellows Sir Thomas as he and a contingent of guards come running towards them, his cheeks puffed up and red. Bristel ignores him and addresses her mother instead.
"My Lady, I come bearing urgent news from the Duke."
Madge almost swoons with relief. News from the Duke means her father is still alive.
"What is the meaning of this?" Sir Thomas thunders. "Have you lost your mind? You cannot-"
"It is fine, Sir Thomas," her mother interrupts gently. "Tell us your news."
Sir Thomas clamps his mouth shut and Bristel nods, his armor spattered with mud.
"The Yorkist army is moving this way, they shall reach the castle in a matter of days."
The ladies around her whimper, Sir Thomas blanches and Madge feels a fire kindle in her belly. Let them come.
"I rode as fast as I could, but Lady Katniss moves them at a punishing rate. The Duke bid me tell you that you must all leave, as quickly as you can."
"No," Madge finds herself saying without thinking, the word torn from her throat. Everyone turns to look at her, their eyes poking at her like daggers. "We will hold the castle against any Yorkist siege," she continues, a hysterical conviction mounting in her bones. Bedford Castle must stand, must be ready to welcome her father home when he wins, just as he has done every time before.
"We cannot, Lady Madge. His Grace the Duke of Beford wishes every man not needed to guard you on your way to join him at the front. Times are desperate and we cannot spare enough men to withstand a siege, and certainly not one from Lady Katniss' entire army. We must run."
Bristel's eyes are hard and Madge feels like the ground is sinking beneath her feet. She cannot leave, will not.
"Sir Thomas, ready the men to join the Duke," her mother orders and Madge is sure she might vomit. We cannot do this, cannot leave. The Yorkists cannot chase us from our home. Sir Thomas bows in assent and hurries off, the Duchess turning to Bristel.
"Fetch the Lord Steward, have him ready the household for departure. We will leave for Berkhampstead immediately."
Madge shakes her head, cannot allow this. Her father has many castles, more than anyone but the King, and Madge has been to most of them. But unlike most nobles, Madge and her family have always preferred a more settled life, have always called Bedford Castle their home. She cannot abandon it now. Bristel frowns.
"My apologies, my lady, but the Duke insisted you go to Westminster and join the King."
The temperature seems to plummet, horror settling over them like a cloak.
no
please no
"My husband is both the Duke of Bedford and of Clarence, he has more castles and palaces than anyone in England save the King. Any one of them will be suitable to wait out this war," her mother retorts, voice steely even as her skin turns a frightening grey.
"The Duke was adamant, your Grace. Westminster will be the most heavily guarded place in England, there will be nowhere safer. The men that will escort you there will not be enough to defend a castle, no matter which you choose. You are the King's niece and the Duke is one of the King's staunchest allies, the Yorkists will make a point of burning down your castle and seizing you and the Lady Madge," Bristel says and he is being so very bold for a squire. The Duchess shakes her head and Madge knows she will refuse, would never countenance them going back to that devil's den.
They have to stay here.
"Very well, inform the Steward."
Madge gapes at her mother, disbelief tingling in every part of her body.
"Mother, no! We cannot go back there! We cann-"
"Enough, Madge. Your lord father is correct, we will be safest there. He would not suggest it unless it was the only option."
Madge shakes her head, furious tears building in her eyes.
"This is not right! I will not go, I will wait here fo-"
"Madge, stop this. We have no choice. We are going to Westminster as your father wishes. Be brave," her mother says, voice softening, "we must have courage and see this through."
Be brave, her father had always told her as he left, be brave.
Oh father, I'm not sure I can
They pack up everything they cannot bear to part with, know full well that the Yorkists will plunder anything that remains. Madge ransacks her chambers, her favourite gowns, jewels, books and trinkets stuffed hurriedly into chests to be packed up in litters. She forces herself not to cry as she bundles it all together, will be strong and resolute.
This is not forever. When this all over, we will be back.
Madge orders them to leave her banner hanging, will not be ashamed of her colours. Even if the Yorkists win, Madge will not renounce her family.
We are Bedfords and proud. We are Lancastrians born and raised.
"Your Grace, the Lord Steward would like to know who is to remain here and who shall travel to Westminster with you," a harried clerk tells them as Madge helps her mother pack up her things.
"No one is to remain here," her mother says immediately and the clerk steps back in surprise.
"No one?"
"No. Abandon the castle. I will not leave men and women behind to be slaughtered or imprisoned by the Yorkists. Tell them to return to their families and give an address to the Steward so I may send them excellent recommendations when I reach London. Take this," she says gesturing to one of her chests full of gold, silver and jewels, "and have the Steward divide it amongst them so they may pay their way until they have found new employment. Tell them also that they are welcome to anything we do not take with us. It is not enough, but it is all I can offer in repayment for their years of loyal service."
The clerk gapes and Madge feels a pang in her heart. Abandon the castle. Who knew three words could ache so much?
"As to those who will accompany us...only those who wish to. I will not yoke anyone to a ship that may soon sink. Everyone has my blessing to leave and seek their own safety, I will not hold them to us."
The clerk is speechless and Madge clutches tight to the rosary beads she'd wrapped around her wrist before leaving her room, praying that God can hear her.
Deliver us from harm
Keep us safe
Please
Madge carries a coffer of her mother's things out into the courtyard and stops in surprise at what she finds.
A full complement of guards stands at attention, Sir Thomas at their head; Bristel and several grooms ready the carriages and horses under the direction of their Constable, Sir Richard Keene; maids pack up the last of the things, guided by the Steward, Sir George Costmary and all her mother's ladies are waiting and dressed for travel.
So many have stayed when they could have fled, have chosen to stand with them, even faced with the coming storm. Madge feels like they have reached into her chest and touched her heart, tears building in her eyes. Sir George notices her and comes over.
"I made the Duchess' offer, but none would take it. Those you do not see here, I had to force to leave. We cannot afford to take everyone if we are to make any haste."
"Thank you," Madge chokes out and Sir George's face turns fierce.
"You needn't thank us, my lady. Each one of us is proud to wear the Bedford Badge."
Madge looks at those silver bells embroidered on their clothes and cannot hold back her tears. They drip down onto the coffer in her arms and see Father? They all love you, you must come home. No matter what the Yorkists do, we are with you.
Always.
Madge, her mother and all of her ladies squeeze into the carriage, sacks and chests piled beneath their feet and under their skirts. It is a tight fit but they have no room to spare, every litter they own filled to the brim. Those maids, cooks, clerks, grooms and other household staff they cannot bring with them cluster in the courtyard to see them off, even Madge's elderly tutor, his stern face melted into tears. Sir George has chosen who will come with them and who cannot, ordering those remaining behind to flee immediately. There is no telling when the Yorkists will arrive. They stand beneath Madge's great banner, waving scraps of fabric bearing the Bedford Bell and Madge fears her heart might burst.
"If there were but room, we would ride anywhere with you!" calls a groom, only a year or two older than Madge.
"God keep you, Lady Margaret!" shouts a ruddy faced cook.
"We shall pray for you, Lady Madge!" promises a teary maid.
"You will be in our hearts!" "May the Lord bless the House of Bedford!" "Keep safe and ride swiftly!" "It has been an honour!"
Madge covers her mouth to stifle her sobs and does not take her eyes off of them as their carriage pulls away, will imprint this scene onto her heart. There are no words she could say that will express her gratitude for such devotion and loyalty, no actions she could take that would ever be enough. Her mother has left them that chest of jewels and coins and given them leave to take anything that remains, but even all those gold plates and silver goblets, those gem encrusted gowns, the carefully carved furniture and store rooms full of food, drink, fabric and wood are not enough, could never repay the kindness they have shown.
"God keep and bless you all!" she shouts out the window and she will pray for just that each and every night. The silver thread of her banner catches in the sunlight and Madge vows that the house of Bedford will survive, for her parents' sake and for all those who have shown them such limitless loyalty.
This is not the end.
The ride to London is torturous, a fear of ambush staying all their tongues.
Will the Yorkists catch them?
Will they make it to London unharmed?
Will it even matter if they do?
Madge keeps her eyes fixed on the window and when she sees London looming before them, she cannot say she is relieved.
Which is the greater of two evils, she wonders.
Rebels who would burn me for my blood?
Or my King?
They stop before the city's gates, Sir Thomas riding out ahead of them.
"Who goes there?" a guard calls from the gatehouse, his shout tinged with fear.
"Her Grace the Duchess of Bedford and Clarence, niece to his Majesty, King Coriolanus of England! We request entrance!" Sir Thomas answers and there is a pause, one Madge cannot understand. Why do they not open the gates?
"Prove it!" one of the guards yells down at them. Madge can see Sir Thomas bristle.
"How dare you refuse to open your gates to the King's blood kin! Our lord the Duke of Bedford fights for his King and you would deny his wife and daughter safe passage?"
Madge is distracted from the guard's reply by her mother moving beside her. The dismal weather and long ride have only worsened her condition and she looks too weak even to stand.
"I must go out," her mother says feebly and Madge shakes her head.
"Mother, you can't!"
"They want proof, I shall give it to them."
Madge wants to argue but it is clear her mother will not listen. She struggles out of the carriage, her ladies helping to support her and Madge prays she will not collapse right there in the street.
"My lady!" Sir George squawks when he notices her mother leaning against the side of the carriage, her breathing laboured. He scrambles down from his horse and takes hold of her arm to keep her steady. She leans into him and looks up at the guard wall, her face dangerously pale, all the veins visible beneath her skin.
"I am Lady Margaret, daughter of Prince Henry, Duke of Clarence, granddaughter of King Henry IV of England, wife of Lord Joseph, Duke of Bedford and niece to your King, Coriolanus of England. I demand you open these gates and allow us to pass so I may see my uncle."
There is strength in her mother's voice, an authority and iron Madge would never have guessed her frail mother capable of.
It takes only moments for the guards to order the gates opened. Sir George helps her mother back inside and she collapses in her seat, chest rattling as she tries to breathe. Madge takes her hand and squeezes it tight.
"We shall be there soon, Mother. We shall be safe."
(Madge wishes she could believe that)
There is a servant of the King's waiting for them when they reach Westminster, the badge on his uniform curdling Madge's stomach. He bows as she dismounts the carriage.
"The King bids you welcome, my Lady, and wishes you and the Duchess to follow me to his Majesty's audience chamber."
Madge expected such a request, but even still, it leaves her cold all over.
"My mother is too ill to see anyone, she must be conveyed straight to bed. I will see his Majesty," she offers, gathering courage around herself like armor. The man looks unconvinced and Madge hardens her voice.
"The King will not take kindly to the Duchess being so poorly treated. She needs rest, please show her to her rooms."
The threat of the King's displeasure is enough to make up his mind.
"Of course, my lady, right away. But will you not need someone to show you to the King's audience chamber?"
Madge shakes her head and turns to look down the hall, feeling like she's about to walk to her own execution.
"I know the way."
Madge waits outside the doors as she is announced and tries to fortify her heart. Better me than mother. She cannot take this torment, sick as she is. The doors swing open and Madge squares her shoulder, marching in with all her dignity. I am a Bedford. I have royal blood in my veins. I am not afraid.
The King sits in his throne but he looks older by decades since last Madge has seen him. He is dressed in dark maroon, lines carved deep in his skin. The Queen beside him is not the bejeweled woman of ice Madge remembers, but hunched and suspicious in her throne, with hostile eyes and a dress of somber blue. Prince Cato has a savage look on his face, his hand clamped firmly on the hilt of his dagger. He must be at least sixteen now and Madge can see the itch to be out fighting painted clearly across his face.
(is it wrong that she wishes he were out there, rather than here?)
Pale, dying sunlight flitters through the windows and the luster of Westminster has clearly faded. She curtsies low and waits for the King to order her to rise.
"Lady Madge," he begins, rolling her name around on his tongue, "wherever is your mother?"
"The Duchess has regretfully fallen ill, your Majesty. She has been brought to bed."
Madge waits, eyes staring at the dusty floor and wonders if he will ever allow her to stand.
"Why have you come?" he demands, a cruel edge to his voice. Madge swallows, throat dry.
"We had received word from my lord father that the Yorkists were coming. We hoped-"
"You hoped to hide here," he interrupts, cutting across her like a knife. "Five years you have not deigned to visit and now you wish to hide behind our walls," he accuses and Madge clenches her hands in the fabric of her dress.
"My most sincere apologies if we have offended you, your Majesty, but we have not come to court because of the danger of the roads and the instability plaguing the kingdom."
A scoff comes from Prince Cato and Madge continues, feels the weight of her and her mother's lives pressing down on her shoulders.
"My lady mother and I have prayed for your victory every day and night while my lord father fights even now to defend your crown. I have hung a banner on our castle walls to show the world that the Bedfords stand side by side with their king. We are your Majesty's most loyal and humble servants."
She closes her eyes and waits for his judgement, their fates resting in his hands.
"Many have renounced their allegiance to us," he murmurs and Madge breathes in deeply.
"We have never your forsaken you, your Majesty," she replies, "you are our King and our blood, placed upon the throne by God himself."
"Indeed. You may rise."
She does, the entire royal family scrutinizing her closely.
"One of the Queen's ladies was not so loyal," the King tells her almost casually, a glint in his dark eyes. "She has since lost her head."
He smirks and Madge bites down hard on her tongue, forces her expression to remain neutral.
"As such, there is a vacancy in the Queen's household. Seeing as you are a noble daughter of loyal stock and possessing of royal blood, we think you would make a good replacement."
He narrows his eyes, watching closely for her reaction. She curtsies again, bowing her head.
"I would be most honoured, your Majesty."
"Good, you shall begin tomorrow. Tonight, see to your mother. We will send the royal physician to tend to her."
"Thank you, your Majesty. You are too kind."
He smirks again, tongue darting out to lick the blood pooling at the corner of his mouth.
"We do hope she will be well enough to break her fast with us tomorrow," he says and even though the words are innocent enough, Madge recognizes the command behind them.
"I am sure she will be."
"Good. You may go now, the physician will soon join you."
Madge holds in her sigh of relief at being dismissed and curtsies again. She leaves the room as quickly as she can without running and clutches her rosary to her heart.
Let this war be over soon
Let us leave this place
Let this not be our tomb
Her mother does not recover but soldiers on valiantly anyway, attending on the King whenever he wishes.
"It has been too long, Margaret," he croons and leads her to the seat beside him, seems not to care that the life in her eyes is flickering and fading with every passing day.
"Indeed it has been," her mother always agrees, voice the faintest breath of sound.
She is wasting away here, but she is not the only one, the entire court wilted and lifeless. These once splendid halls are drab and dingy, no longer echoing with music and laughter. The dark cloud that has lingered for so long over England has finally reached the palace that conjured it, the King suffering as his people have done for decades.
Madge waits on the Queen and it is clear that the royal family are terrified, can feel Lady Katniss' net tightening around them. Their eyes dart about at every sound, every scrap of news devoured. They jump at shadows, punish any who even look at them crosswise and they are irritable and snappish, suspicious of everyone and everything. They cannot survive like this for much longer, no one can.
(they won't have to)
As February begins to die, Madge spends her nights on her knees in prayer, hands clasped and head bowed.
I beg you Lord, please keep my father safe.
Please, bring him home to us
(but does the Lord answer prayers that come from a house of evil?)
(Madge is afraid to find out)
March rises over London in a blanket of fog and with it comes Madge's fifthteenth birthday, but she does not tell anyone and is glad of the lack of celebration.
She does not think she and the King share the same taste in entertainment.
(her mother presses a gift into her palm and when Madge opens it, she almost sobs.
It is a set of miniatures, one of each of her parents, held together with hinges.
"To remember us by," her mother whispers and Madge almost chokes on her tone of defeat)
(Madge does not want to remember them)
(remembering them means all she has left are memories)
A handful of days later, Madge is helping the Queen dress when a knock sounds at the door.
"Answer it!" Queen Enobaria orders, voice cracking like a whip and Madge curtsies, an angry spring coiled in her chest. She hurries over to the door and opens it to find a frightened looking page waiting on the other side. His face softens in relief when he sees it is her and not the Queen.
"I bring summons from the his Majesty the King. He wishes the Queen to join him in the hall immediately."
Madge nods, thanks him and watches him sprint away while she has to turn back to her mistress, the Queen's expression poisoned and sour.
"What did he want?" she demands and Madge reigns in her frustration. Everyday is a constant stream of belligerent bullying and she is beginning to think she might be better off losing her head as the Queen's previous lady did.
"The King requests your presence, your Grace."
"Then hurry up and get back to work, we mustn't keep him waiting," she snaps as if Madge had been slacking off. Madge bites her tongue and does as she is bidden, lacing the Queen into her gown as quickly as she can. The other ladies fuss about with her hair and hennin and Madge wonders what news of the King's could be so urgent.
Victory perhaps?
Or is it defeat?
The King does not waste time with plesantries.
"We are riding out," he announces and people around her gasp in shock. Madge furrows her brow.
"My ministers think it will do the men good to see their King, so we will go and meet them on the battlefield. With God's grace, this will put a swift end to this cursed war and see our kingdom righted once again," he continues and Madge feels like a ray of sunshine is beaming down directly on her head. The King will be gone, they will be free of him, at least for a time. She sends a silent thanks to God for His mercy.
"Let me come with you, Father," Prince Cato begs, bloodlust thick in his voice.
"That will do more harm than good," the King says, brushing him off. "It would be foolish to risk both King and heir on one battlefield."
Cato stiffens, eyes burning.
"I am old enough to fight! I should not be left cooped up here with the women!" he growls and the King turns sharply to look at him, eyes colder than ice.
"You will do as we tell you or you shall suffer as all others that disobey us. Is that clear?"
Prince Cato stares in shock a moment before wilting and Madge frowns.
What kind of man threatens his own son?
(a wicked, wicked, wicked one)
"Yes, Father."
"Good. We must now be off. We shall expect you all to pray for us and keep Westminster ready for our return."
Madge curtsies as he passes and cannot wait to tell her mother of this blessing.
She finds her mother lying in bed, her food barely touched. Madge sits by her side and takes her hand.
"The King is going off to battle, to inspire his men."
"So we have lost then," her mother breathes and Madge cocks her head in confusion.
"What do you mean?"
"In all the years, with all the battles, when has the King ever gone out to see his men?"
Madge opens her mouth to reply and realizes the answer is never.
"If he is leaving now, it is because he is running away."
"He wouldn't abandon his son, or the Queen, would he?" Madge asks, cannot believe she actually wishes he were still here. Her mother looks at her with pitying eyes.
"Wouldn't he?"
Yes, she admits, yes he would.
The King's departure has left a ragged wound in Westminster, his unflinching arrogance no longer present to stem the flow of desolation flooding London. It is obvious now, without his overpowering menace, to see just how dire their situation is.
The House of Lancaster is losing.
Katniss of York, her followers emblazoned with her badge of a white rose, so vividly contrasting with the King's bloody red, marches through England like a storm, churning Lancastrian armies into corpses and convincing others to turn their coats. Her ranks swell everyday and there is nothing the King's flagging support can do to stop her. Sooner or later they will all be caught up in her current, swept away by the House of York and it's vengeful lady.
The only question is when.
Madge relishes the moments she can be alone, away from the Queen and her brittle temper and caustic words. She sneaks away to wander Westminster's long halls and could almost believe there was no war, if only her heart didn't ache so for her father. The palace is so quiet now, entirely unlike the one she remembers from childhood and there's peace in that, however fragile. The only sound is the echo of her boots and Madge wishes she knew what happened beyond these walls, but news has been sluggish since the King left, trickling slowly like water from a tiny crack in the wall.
They heard, over a week after the fact, of the Earl of Warwick and William Herbert smashing the King's reinforcements from Wales, leaving them unable to meet up with the main body of the King's army, gearing up for one great, last battle. This will be the one that determines the outcome of the war, the victor claiming the throne of England.
(Madge tries not to think about what will be left to the loser)
Agonizingly slow reports come in that young Gale of Salisbury inspires many to flock to the Yorkist banner, his words stirring loyalty into their hearts. Madge stops by a window with slightly warped glass and tries to guess at what he might be saying, what spurs them on to treason. The grass outside is sodden with late season snow and Madge hopes her father keeps warm, hopes he crushes Gale of Salisbury to dust, hopes he routs Haymitch of Warwick and leaves Katniss of York destitute and friendless.
Madge may not bear the King any love, but the curse of her blood means she is a Lancaster, her life depending on a Yorkist defeat. More importantly, she knows what tragedies will await her parents if the Yorkists prove triumphant and Madge cannot bear to see them suffer. They have only done what they had no choice to, for had not every great noble man sworn an oath to serve his King? Was he not anointed by the Lord himself?
(in a different world, Madge may have chosen to be a Yorkist, would have seen the injustices committed by King Coriolanus and wanted him condemned to Hell for it)
(but this is not a different world and Madge has no luxury to choose)
(and even if she did, she would always choose her family, over anything, over everything)
Her musings are interrupted by a throaty giggle, followed soon after by enthusiastic grunts. Madge frowns in confusion but it soon vanishes when heavy panting drifts towards her from down the hall. Her face stains red and she may still be a virginal maid, but she is no idiot. Servants talk and Madge has heard enough to guess what is happening nearby, a low, ecstatic moan making it all the clearer.
(as horrified as she is, this is almost a blessing, her mind entirely distracted from the terror that awaits her loved ones)
(all she can think about now is how utterly, utterly mortified she is)
Madge, perhaps childishly, covers her ears and means to rush past the not-entirely-closed door a few feet down the hall, but just as she is passing the doorway, her eyes catch on silver thread shining in watery sunlight. She pauses and the scene comes into focus before her, worse than she would have guessed.
She is facing Prince Cato's black and silver clad back, his fair head almost glowing in March sunbeams, as he grunts and thrusts up under the skirts of one of the Queen's ladies, one Madge never has the interest to remember the name of. Her legs are tied around his waist and her head thrown back, her long black hair flowing freely.
Madge takes a step back and then a few more, determined to be as quiet as possible. She cannot imagine the prince would be pleased at her witnessing this event and would rather not take any chances. She whirls then and hitches up her skirts, flying down the hall at an unladylike pace, and plans to purge this moment from her memories. Even still, she cannot stop her mind from wandering just a bit, curiosity slinking up her spine. How long have they been doing this? she wonders, and are there others, or is Prince Cato dallying with only her (the lady Madge cannot for the life of her put a name to)? Is this lust? Or is Prince Cato actually capable of something as human as love?
In any other circumstance, Madge might ask, but Prince Cato would probably slit her throat if she tried. And if that lady is his sweetheart, she'd probably be just as likely to as well.
Madge shudders.
Less than a week later, her mother's grave pronouncement is proven true.
Madge sits beside the Queen, embroidering a gift for her father and surreptitiously attempting to puzzle out Prince Cato's lover, Lady Clove (Madge has finally remembered her name), when a messenger arrives, his expression grim. Madge inhales sharply and sets down her needlework, heart nearly racing out of her chest.
Please be alright Father, please please be alright
"What is it?" the Queen asks, the tremor in her voice making it clear she has already guessed.
"I have just come from Towton," the messenger begins and there are nightmares playing over in his eyes. Madge squeezes her hands together and wishes her mother was beside her, rather than laid up in bed.
"It was the bloodiest battle I have ever seen. I would wager there were more dead there than in any other battle on English soil," he continues, voice haunted.
"Enough of that, what news?" the Queen huffs impatiently but Madge is not sure she wants to know, would rather have a few more minutes of blissful ignorance. The messenger swallows.
"The King's forces were utterly destroyed. Lady Katniss of York and her cousins, Haymitch of Warwick and Gale of Salisbury, slaughtered them all...it was a massacre. Only a handful escaped, including his Majesty, who has fled to Scotland. They are marching here now, to take London and declare a new sovereign."
The silence that follows is deafening.
Father, you must be alright, you must have escaped.
You must.
"We will bar the gates and push back the Yorkist scum!" Prince Cato declares, voice hot and angry. The messenger shakes his head.
"The mayor has already said he will not," he informs them and the women around the Queen start weeping, their embroidery tumbling to the floor. Madge feels like the world around her has gone dark, every candle snuffed out. We are doomed.
"They would abandon their King?" Cato spits, knuckles white on his dagger and Madge wants to laugh and sob all at the same time. He has already abandoned them! she wants to scream but instead she picks up her needle and thread with numb fingers.
"We must get to sanctuary," she whispers and Cato whirls on her, face burnt red with his fury.
"I will not hide like some coward!" he bellows in her face, spittle showering her cheeks but Madge does not flinch, feels almost like she has been hollowed out, all her emotions scraped clean.
"Then you will die, struck down by the Yorkists."
"You filthy whore, shut up!" he screeches and his knuckles are violent as they collide with her face, knocking her to the floor. Her knees shriek as they collide with the stone and the ladies near her scream in shock. The skin is scraped from her hands and Madge feels dazed, her cheekbone aching. Cato grabs a fistful of her hair and drags her head back, his nostrils flaring and tears spring to her eyes with the pain, a gasp spilling from her lips.
"How dare you speak to me like that, how dare you! I will be your King!"
"Enough," the Queen states, voice slicing through his fog of rage.
"You heard what she said?" Cato demands and Madge feels lightheaded, the world blinking white and bright.
"It is of no consequence, we must prepare. Come now," she orders and Cato throws Madge to the floor, her chin slamming down painfully. She bites her tongue and tastes her own hot blood, the world swimming in her eyes. The Queen and Cato rush off, followed by all their attendants and Madge is left alone in a sticky, red puddle, pain sparking across her body.
So this is how it ends, then.
The House of Lancaster has fallen.
Now rises the House of York.
Madge eventually finds the strength to heave herself up and back to her chambers, every part of her throbbing.
What now? she thinks, spitting blood into a bowl.
What now?
She awakes the next morning to find the Queen and Prince Cato have disappeared in the night, have abandoned them to the mercies of the approaching Yorkists.
Madge wanders the deserted halls of Westminster with a chill in her heart, her footsteps echoing in ancient halls as she hugs herself. Her King, her Queen, her Prince, they've all forsaken her and she knows she has no choice but to stay and await her conquerors, cannot run or hide. Lady Bedford cannot be moved and Madge cannot leave her, will not, so she does the only thing she can.
She clutches her rosary and kneels in the chapel, stays on cold, hard floors all day and night. No one is coming to rescue her, no ally or white knight, so Madge prays, for her father, for her mother, for Lady Katniss' mercy. It may not be enough, but Madge has no sword, no shield, no quiver full of arrows.
At fifteen, Madge of Bedford learns she has only herself.
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Credit: Rebecca Faith Photo
When Kerry of Angel’s Kitchen asked if I wanted to be Creative Designer and Stylist for a Wedding Photoshoot to showcase her incredible work along with some super talented wedding professionals at Coombe Lodge Blagdon, I DID A LITTLE DANCE INSIDE!
I simply couldn’t say no and whilst our work is being shared to wedding publications in the conventional way, I thought I’d post a ‘behind the scenes‘ scoop as it wouldn’t be true to Oh So Kel if I didn’t share the DIYs and design details now would it?! I’ve shared the thought process that led to our design choices and what I learnt which I hope helps if you’re planning a wedding or photoshoot of your own…
The Concept
The idea was to create a beautiful Boho Chic look to inspire trend-loving brides and grooms who want a unique relaxed vibe to their day, using hues from Pantone Colour of the Year ‘Living Coral’ mixed with aztec patterns and pampas grass. This trend has graced my Pinterest boards across interior decor and destination weddings across the globe and I have a big soft spot for the boho vibe (check out my Boho Fiesta Garden Party) so it was rather exciting when the dream team were just as excited about the concept too!
Coombe Lodge is a knockout venue with the most beautiful window which we wanted to work with by creating a floral frame backdrop with exposed copper piping where you could see through to the beautiful grounds, giving a nod to the nature and freedom-loving theme by creating the impression of the outside being in. This was the perfect setting to showcase the Angel’s Kitchen cake and The Secret Garden Somerset flowers, surrounded by aztec rugs, bohemian style accessories and pampas grass.
Credit: Rebecca Faith Photo
Credit: Rebecca Faith Photo
The magnificent four tier ombre effect cake had to be a real showstopper to fill the space underneath the floral frame display, and a showstopper it was. We decided it couldn’t be all white because it may get lost but it also couldn’t be too heavily patterned because it may clash with the aztec rug and accessories, so the ombre effect coral icing adorned with wreath made entirely of sugar flowers and leaves offered the perfect combination. Elevating the cake on an oak and white marble cake stand (from the Homesense clearance section) gave it an air of sophistication and allowed the flowers to peep through the space underneath.
Orange lace used at our Day of the Dead Halloween Party added an eclectic vintage touch, offering a real sense of free movement and connectivity between the table and floor displays, along with the use of pampas grass throughout. The unstructured approach to the floor display where the elements appear ‘random’ along with the foundation built on aztec rugs is what really pulls this scheme together. A seemingly effortless mix of eclectic pieces, romantic blooms, vintage lace and ethnic aztec patterns come together harmoniously, epitomising the bohemian style.
Credit: Rebecca Faith Photo
Credit: Rebecca Faith Photo
For Cost Savvy Brides and Grooms
The idea was that the beautiful vignette could also double up as a Registrar Table for the Wedding Ceremony and the cake be added later for the Reception to provide inspiration for budget savvy brides and grooms.
The wonderful thing about this trend is being able to introduce props and accessories that aren’t ordinarily associated with weddings and what I love is the sentimental (and cost-saving) idea that they can be used in the couple’s home afterwards; a permanent reminder of their special day after the suits have been returned and the dress packed away.
Credit: Rebecca Faith Photo
Credit: Rebecca Faith Photo
Behind the Scenes
This was my first wedding-related photoshoot and the first one on location, so to settle my nerves and give me a bit of confidence in my own abilities I roughly mocked up the vision at home…spot the Christmas sprout cake! It was really useful for my own purposes but also for Jess and Kerry creating the flowers and cake as it helped them to visualise it too.
If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen that I obtained the pampas grass by asking on our local Facebook page if anyone would be willing to share some from their garden, which also led to multiple smutty comments about me being a swinger?! Yup, a swinger! It was worth the effort (and embarrassment) though; don’t you agree that the grass adds a different dimension and depth when mixed with the flowers? I also love how beautifully chic it is on its own. To prevent the fluffy bits going everywhere Jess from The Secret Garden Florist gave THE best advice – spray it with hairspray! Genius!
The large aztec rug used on the floor was from Etsy and usually belongs in our family room as featured in my Festive Boho Bonanza with Baylis and Harding. The smaller one on the table was from Homesense at Cribbs Causeway in Bristol.
I’d seen beautiful copper piping frames but didn’t have the budget for one so instead I spray painted my black photography backdrop frame using ‘Copper Rose‘ from Craig and Rose Paints. It worked a treat and now I know it works I can spray it different colours for other shoots too!
What I Learnt
It’s worth planning ahead so you have time to pull your perfect props together and discuss the best solutions with other partners/suppliers
Take extra of everything, including lots of fabrics of varying colours and textures
Having a ‘set up kit’ consisting of items like scissors, sellotape, clear fishing wire and all-purpose glue can save lots of time
If you’re pushed for time, place your whole set up on a large rug. We found out by accident that you can easily drag it along a wooden floor to photograph it in a different location!!
Working with a top class cake creator is always a good idea, because they tend to bring ‘samples‘ for the team 😉
Have confidence in yourself and your abilities. You’ve been asked to do this for a reason!
What do you think?
I’m pretty convinced the bohemian trend will continue to be a huge hit with brides and grooms in 2019 and beyond, as well as throughout the home. Let me know in the comments below what you think of the trend, if you’re having a boho wedding or if you’re planning your first photoshoot. I’d love to hear all about it!
I’d also love to see the results, so please tag me on Instagram and use #OSKinspired so I can enjoy your work.
The Dream Team
Contributors:
Venue: Coombe Lodge Blagdon, Bristol, Somerset (www.coombelodge.co.uk)
Creative Designer and Stylist: Oh So Kel (www.ohsokel.com)
Cake Designer: Angel’s Kitchen (www.angelskitchen.co.uk)
Florist: The Secret Garden Florist, Somerset (www.thesecretgardensomerset.com)
Photographer: Rebecca Faith Photo (www.rebeccafaithphoto.com)
Videographer: Fire & Diamond Films (www.fireanddiamondfilms.com)
Credit: Rebecca Faith Photo
Credit: Rebecca Faith Photo
Credit: Rebecca Faith Photo
Credit: Rebecca Faith Photo
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BOHO PAMPAS GRASS WEDDING SHOOT (+ BEHIND THE SCENES) When Kerry of Angel's Kitchen asked if I wanted to be Creative Designer and Stylist for a…
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