#oak manor plantation
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Oak Alley Plantation
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*emerges from oak tree
Favorite literary haunted house? I'm torn between Hill House and Usher Manor personally.
Happy Spring!
*retreats into moss
Hmm, haunted houses aren't something I've encountered as much, I will say that "When the Reckoning Comes" has a pretty good haunted plantation. The house from "Masque of the Red Death" is also fun
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Opulent Occasions: Luxury Wedding Venues in North Carolina
For couples with discerning tastes and a penchant for opulence, North Carolina offers a splendid array of luxury wedding venues that redefine the concept of a dream wedding. From historic estates to modern marvels, these venues provide an exquisite backdrop for couples seeking a celebration that is as lavish as their love. In this exploration, we delve into the world of opulent occasions, uncovering the allure and unique features of luxury wedding venues in the charming state of North Carolina.
Biltmore Estate: A Gilded Age Extravaganza
Undoubtedly one of North Carolina's crown jewels, the Biltmore Estate stands as a testament to the Gilded Age's opulence. Nestled in the picturesque mountains of Asheville, this grand estate boasts regal architecture, sprawling gardens, and breathtaking views. Couples can exchange vows in the opulent Banquet Hall, surrounded by intricate woodwork and a magnificent fireplace, or choose the Italian Garden for an outdoor ceremony overlooking the estate. The Biltmore Estate is an epitome of luxury, offering a timeless and sophisticated setting for an unforgettable wedding.
The Umstead Hotel and Spa: Modern Elegance in Cary
For couples seeking modern elegance, The Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary provides a luxurious oasis. Surrounded by tranquil gardens and a peaceful lake, this award-winning hotel offers contemporary architecture and upscale amenities. The Grand Ballroom, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and crystal chandeliers, provides a stunning setting for a lavish reception. The Umstead's commitment to culinary excellence ensures that every aspect of the wedding, from the ceremony to the dining experience, is infused with sophistication and style.
Graylyn Estate: Old-World Charm in Winston-Salem
Stepping onto the grounds of Graylyn Estate in Winston-Salem is like entering a bygone era of refined luxury. This historic estate, reminiscent of a European manor, features lush gardens, antique furnishings, and grand ballrooms. Couples can choose to say their vows in the intimate Bowens Room or opt for a lavish celebration in the opulent Mews. Graylyn Estate provides a timeless and romantic backdrop for couples who appreciate the charm of old-world elegance and seek a wedding venue that exudes sophistication.
Rose Hill Plantation: Southern Grandeur in Nashville
Nestled in the heart of eastern North Carolina, Rose Hill Plantation offers Southern grandeur at its finest. The plantation's historic manor, surrounded by centuries-old oak trees, sets the stage for a wedding straight out of a classic Southern romance. The Carriage House and the sprawling grounds provide ample space for a grand ceremony and a luxurious reception. Rose Hill Plantation embodies the epitome of Southern charm, offering a venue where elegance and tradition converge for an opulent celebration.
The Sutherland: Timeless Romance in Wake Forest
A venue that seamlessly blends modern luxury with timeless romance, The Sutherland in Wake Forest captures the essence of opulent occasions. The estate, with its meticulously manicured gardens and a historic mansion, provides a backdrop that is both classic and sophisticated. Couples can exchange vows in the lush garden or opt for an indoor ceremony in the elegantly adorned ballroom. The Sutherland's commitment to personalized service ensures that every detail of the wedding is curated to perfection, creating an atmosphere of unparalleled luxury.
The Duke Mansion: Historic Splendor in Charlotte
Nestled in the heart of Charlotte, The Duke Mansion stands as a testament to historic splendor and Southern charm. This grand estate, once the residence of James Buchanan Duke, exudes elegance and sophistication. The beautifully landscaped gardens and the grandeur of the mansion provide a regal setting for a luxurious wedding. With multiple event spaces, including the exquisite outdoor terraces and the opulent indoor rooms, The Duke Mansion caters to couples who desire a wedding venue that radiates timeless allure and Southern hospitality.
Conclusion: Crafting a Timeless Tale of Luxury
In the enchanting landscape of North Carolina, luxury wedding venues offer couples the opportunity to craft a timeless tale of opulence and romance. From the grandeur of the Biltmore Estate to the modern elegance of The Umstead Hotel and Spa, and from the old-world charm of Graylyn Estate to the Southern grandeur of Rose Hill Plantation, these venues cater to diverse tastes while upholding the highest standards of luxury.
Choosing a luxury wedding venue is not just about a location; it's about creating an experience that reflects the couple's unique style and aspirations. Each venue mentioned, with its distinctive features and opulent ambiance, allows couples to weave their love story into the very fabric of history and luxury. In the embrace of luxury wedding venues in north carolina, couples can embark on a journey that transcends the ordinary, crafting a celebration that is not just an event but an opulent occasion etched in time.
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To the End and Back (Minecraft AU fanfic)
Fic under the cut.
Enderman x Endergirl
Trigger warnings: Violence, cursewords, abusive behavior, Enderman anger, and violence against animals.
Word count: 14197 (I’m proud of that)
Monster Reform AU- At Hillote Monster Reform School, a female Enderman named Jemma rules the school, but everything turns on its head when a male of her race joins the student body. They can’t stand each other at first, but also can’t stay away. When rogue humans threaten them and their school, what will happen when they are forced to go to the End and back?
Jemma stood leaned against the cracked marble pillar of the plantation mansion that lay proud, yet weathered, some dozen miles into the swamp. Luminous, royal violet eyes scanned the marshy landscape that was now as much a home to her as where she had come from: The End. She was tall, pushing six foot eight inches. With void-black skin that her charcoal colored sweater dress, garters, stockings and soft boots could never hope to match. She appeared to be a starless night sky.
Behind her, the grand heavy live oak door to the manor’s foyer opened. She turned to the sound, tucking her pitch black curtain-like tresses behind her ear where they, defiantly would never stay.
“What?” She snapped, her voice garbled and distorted. Her kind were famous-- more like infamous-- for their extreme tempers. Just a wrong look could send them into a furious episode.
“Sorry, Jemma. I, er, the doctor wants to see you in his office…” The other monster student, a younger skeleton named Kelly, looked absolutely cowed to be speaking to Jemma at all.
Jemma rolled her eyes so hard, her whole head followed the motion. And now her hair was in her face again. She tucked it back, and pushed past the other monster with quick, long strides. She pushed right past Kelly in the doorway and into the foyer with creaking, warped hardwood floors kept polished and waxed to give the semblance of care and maintenance. The grand painting of the school’s founder hung on the wall to the left, and to the right, smaller portraits of every headmaster the school has had since. In the center of the immaculate but stuffy front hall was a little table with a vase of swamp lilies and cattails. Two curved staircases framed a hallway that led to the kitchens, dining hall, ballrooms, and the offices of the headmaster and school counselor slash monster liaison.
Jemma headed to the headmaster’s office and opened the door, knocking almost as an afterthought. She took in the scene. Dr. Jean Clark, headmistress, and Dr. Kaine Lesenhauer, counselor, waited on either side of a lavish teak desk, the only sound: a metronome on the dusty shelf of knickknacks.
“You asked for me, Dr. Clark?” Jemma tamed her roiling blood at the undue stares of the room-- for this couldn’t be another scolding about her anger issues. There was a boy about her age that she’d never seen before, much less had she bullied before.
The boy was an enderman, like Jemma. He turned to face her and their violet eyes locked. Immediately she was swimming in homicidal ideations. But she wanted to stay in this school just a smidge more than she wanted to murder this unfamiliar male.
“Dr. Lesenhauer…”
“Jemma, I understand your race can be territorial, but I was telling Dr. Clark, how proud I was about your progress, and I believe you both can get along. Right Rorke? Jemma?” Kaine asked sternly.
“I will if he will.” She turned to Kaine.
“I have no quarrels with her.” Rorke did as well. Then once they’d heard each other’s statements, returned to glare at each other.
“Jemma, I want no problems between you two. Am I clear?” Jean stopped the metronome.
“With all due respect Dr. Clark, why give this disclaimer to me?”
“Because his record starts today. Yours has been going on. And on. And on.” Jean tapped a rather thick file on her desk and Jemma shut up, quickly. “I’d like you to show him where things are.”
Jemma looked at her like she’d shot her in the throat. So did Rorke.
“You heard me.” Jean closed the file and stood. “You both have the afternoon free, so have the grand tour. Welcome to Hillote, Rorke.
2
Jemma turned and stalked out of the room, without waiting for whom she now firmly believed to be her competition. With a sound like something imploding into void, Rorke teleported beside her. Jemma, being perfectly capable of the same thing, had little reaction.
“I don’t like you, you don’t like me, so I’ll give you the short version to get this over with and we can go about never speaking to each other again.” Jemma got the whole sentence out in one breath, her stride quick.
“Fine with me.” He scoffed.
“Good. I’m sure you’ve walked through the foyer before.” She gestured to it, “The entire west wing is classrooms, the east, dorms.” She turned on her heel, an about-face, and headed towards the kitchens, catching Rorke off guard. She powered onward, simply assuming he was behind her like she was leading the mythical Eurydice from the underworld.
The hall leading to the kitchens gradually increased in heat, as well as in divine scents.
“Dining hall is through that arch, also leads to the ballrooms. We have a dance every season.” She cut through a pair of saloon doors into the kitchen, where monsters and humans worked to prepare supper. Jemma surreptitiously snatched a sticky bun off of a dessert tray. The treat was a soft, fluffy white roll, rolled in honey and sugar and filled with sweet cheese. “These are better fresh.” She said.
Rorke followed her through another set of doors to a patio with an old fashioned rusted water pump that she gave a wide berth. Birds twittered in a lovely melody that in truth probably meant something like “Stay away from my nest!” or “I’m seeking a lay!”
Funny how most pretty things have ulterior motives. Jemma huffed and pushed open the rotting wooden gate, the faded paint on which was peeling in neat curls like scrolls overflowing a shelf in a wizard’s library. A worn and rutted gravel path led down a gentle hill to a vegetable garden, boasting carrots, potatoes and beetroot. Sugar reeds grew along a pond some ten yards away. In a fenced in hutch, rabbits and chickens roamed as best they could in the eight foot by eight foot space.
Jemma stopped and gestured widely to encompass the whole view. “Behold, potential food.”
She clearly was not intending to be humorous, but the male snorted anyway. She shot him a scalding glare, but he had since fixed his face. Much like a contrary cat, he acted as if he had never known any positive or endearing emotion. She sneered, Showing the one light colored thing on her. Opalescent, shark-like teeth. She busied her mouth with the sticky bun
“We often have outdoor classes at that gazebo there,” She pointed with the half eaten roll at a shaded grove of live oaks with a large octagonal structure as shelter, “but enderfolk are excused in the event of rain.”
His only answer was a curt nod.
“Jemma! Hey!” a hissing, gravelly voice called.
“What, Logan?” She stuffed the rest of the bun in her mouth and wiped her honey covered hands in the overly excited creeper’s hair to hold him away from giving her a hug. He was thwarted by her superior arm-length.
“So there’s two of you now, huh? Are you two like, together?” Logan’s chubby, flushed and stubbly face contorted into a smug grin.
“Absolutely not.” The two enderfolk said in unison.
“Awesome, so I still have a chance, yeah?”
“There’s 100% chance I’ll punt you into the swamp.” Jemma hated creepers. They were very aptly named. “The only thing stopping me is the threat of expuls--” A sound made them both freeze: an unholy rattling growl, coming from Rorke.
Logan was no longer making a pest of himself, suddenly. Jemma looked back at the creeper. She didn’t know someone with that fat distribution could beat cheeks that fast, but look at him go.
He could be a track star, Jemma noted to herself. Provided there’s a jealous enderman behind him.
“Would you care to explain, Rorke, why you’re growling at a simpleton creeper? I could handle him myself!”
“And I did it quicker.” he was still glaring with purple fire in his eyes after the fat-ass’s dust trail.
“Just remember, you’re new. It’s my turf, and you have no hold over me in any capacity!” She strode right up to him and pointed a finger in his face.
As quick as a skeleton’s arrow, Rorke snatched her hand from the air between them and squeezed until there was an almighty crack. Jemma let loose a keening, ear-piercing shriek, pulling her broken hand free from his and holding it to her chest.
A human faculty member came sprinting. “What in Hillote happened, Jemma? What’s wrong with your hand?” She gently took it, and Jemma bit her lip so hard that violet blood flowed free.
She didn’t know what possessed her to say it. “Smashed it… in the gate…”
3
Jemma couldn’t even look at the witch nurse as she got her hand bones set and wrapped. She made terrifying, guttural noises the entire time.
“Don’t know how a gate did this much damage, gyal, but I won’t pry. You’ll have to wear a sling until the bones heal enough to keep your hand shaped like a hand.”
“WHAT?” That turned her seething glare to her. Wearing a sling would let everyone know that the new kid got her cowed! She would NOT show that weakness!
“Sorry, gyal, but we can’t risk the bones moving.” The witch gave a stern look, not showing an ounce of fear at Jemma’s reaction. She and the higher faculty were the only ones Jemma bowed to.
--
Walking the corridors with one arm verily strapped to her own chest, Jemma’s hard eyes challenged anyone to say something. It was her face, not her voice, that told everyone: “Go ahead and say something. I’ll still beat your face in, one handed.”
She entered the girls’ dorm hall, and passed by the sitting room where other monster girls gossiped. As she walked by, the conversation suddenly hushed, and several girls turned to stare. She paused in her fuming march and whipped around to face the gaggle of ogglers.
“PUT YOUR EYES BACK!” she shrieked, then stormed down to her room and slammed the door shut after her, so hard that the latch didn’t catch and it swung back open. She slammed it again with an enraged roar.
Within the room, her Ghast roommate, Opal sat at the vanity, powdering her face as her curvaceous almost swallowed the tiny stool she sat upon. She was large as a blimp, but light as air. For her size, she was bullied fiercely, but never when Jemma was within earshot. Jemma was firmly of the opinion that only she could freely bully her roommate.
The room itself suited Opal more than Jemma, with pastels and lace doilies, a very light, muted color scheme. Dust motes danced in a sunbeam that invaded the room by way of a crack between the almost-closed curtains. Jemma allowed herself to flop onto her bed in the darker corner, right next to the little cage that held a white rabbit, the girls’ pet. A twinge in her hand made her call out.
“New boy, huh? I hear he’s your kind. Is he handsome?” Opal asked. So she hadn’t heard.
“I don’t know about handsome, but next time I see him? He’s DEAD!” Jemma thrashed like a child in a tantrum.
“Oh. Bad first impression, I guess?” Opal turned on the stool.
Jemma let her glare be the answer.
“Hm. Well, tomorrow is the free day in the village. Are you looking forward to that?”
Jemma still only glared.
“We need more straw for Hearts’ cage, and I need to see the tailor. You could use something to get your mind off of--”
Jemma gave a rattling growl.
“Sorry.” Opal turned back to the mirror.
“Fine. I’ll go. My boots are wearing thin, and I could use some new clothes.” Jemma finally relented, letting out a heaving sigh.
“You wanna go to the chocolatier?”
There was a pregnant pause. “Yes.”
--
Jemma was awoken by Opal dressing herself and humming. Jemma grumbled evilly, and put her pillow over her head that was covered in rats’ nest knots of hair.
“Oh no you don’t. We need to get the matts out before you’re seen in public and that will take at least an hour. Up. Please.” Opal trying to be assertive was a rare and endearing thing. Endearing enough to make Jemma stir and sit up.
“It’s a good thing he won’t be there. There’s no way he got permission yet.” She growled.
Opal didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. The air between them told Jemma all she didn’t want to know.
“No way.” Jemma turned her wrathful gaze on her oversized roomie.
“I heard they mailed it to him before he got here and he brought it with him, signed.”
“WHAT?” Jemma suddenly stood, her broken hand sweeping a lamp off the table between their beds, making her roar in pain and anguish.
Slewing curse-words, Jemma confined herself to the vanity stool to get the nights knits out of her hair. Every tug and tear at her locks sent another swear flying from between bared teeth.
Pulling a knee-length black dress over her form, Jemma put on the sling, her bane, and slung her bag over her good shoulder. With a pouting, beseeching look at Opal, she announced her readiness to head to the village of Bollebog.
Walking with the rest of their class, Jemma noticed Opal staring wistfully at the skeleton girls, how their ribs and hips showed through skin and how their thighs didn’t touch at all. A rare shot of sympathy coursed through Jemma’s heart, and she was moved to speak.
“You’ll never be that small, Opal. But you know what? That’s how it should be. Bones are for dogs. You are the perfect size for who you are, because your body matches your heart. Big.”
“Thank you, Jemma.”
4
The pair split off from the class when dismissed by Dr. Lesenhauer. Opal led them to the cobbler first, Where Jemma bought a new pair of boots of the same kind she always wore. Opal chastised her for being predictable and almost got decked. The only thing that saved her was Jemma’s broken hand and the promise of a sundae at the chocolatier.
Next they dropped by the general store and got straw and carrots for Hearts, where Jemma almost strangled the clerk for making a crude comment when Opal’s backside knocked down a display of records. Jemma scared him so badly that he didn’t even charge the extra emeralds for damages.
Then the tailor, who knew Opal by her vast silhouette in the doorway, probably because of having to sew so many custom sized things for her. The tailor cautiously greeted Jemma, and only looked to her face when introduced by Opal. Jemma found this amenable, and politely introduced herself back. But her face just seemed to have “bitch” written all over it.
“Can you fix that?” Opal pointed to her bitch face.
“Opal. You have brought me a challenge. I will fix that.”
“Hey!” Jemma barely contained her fists as she was pushed towards a dressing room. But this villager was strong, and Jemma didn’t fancy a run-in with the iron golem.
--
Jemma turned this way and that, looking at the way the lavender cocktail dress’s layered skirts fell in waves about her knees.
“Jemma, you’re gorgeous. I wish you’d stop covering yourself with black clothes.” Opal looked ecstatic and Jemma looked at her like she’d grown an extra leg. But her face still seemed to say bitch.
“Try smiling.” The tailor offered. She shrank back when Jemma turned the bitch face on her.
Jemma looked back to the mirror and pulled her lips back to reveal her teeth.
“Okay, that’s worse.” Opal sighed dryly.
“Opal…”
“You’re always so strong, Jemma. You’re like a diamond. So hard and strong. But you’re not allowing the diamond’s sparkle to show. Yes, you can kick anyone’s ass in a fight, and you make people speechless with fear. You’re hard as a diamond. Let yourself be as beautiful as one, too. You’re a force of nature. Make them speechless with beauty. Stun them, not with a punch to the face, but-- strike them with awe.” Opal said.
“Thank you, Opal.”
Jemma ended up buying the dress.
--
Jemma bought several more outfits that were much more colorful than her norm. As curfew approached at a leisurely crawl, they headed for a days-end treat at the chocolatier.
Opal saw someone she knew and headed off for a moment to say hello, after ordering their desserts.
As Jemma loitered at the counter, she noticed a great number of people turn from staring at her to stare at something, or someone else that had just come in, making the bell above the door jingle. The record on the jukebox skipped and stopped, and the only sound in the place was the worker’s dazed “Come again…” as he handed her the chocolate sundae sprinkled with dark chocolate shavings and chocolate covered coffee beans. She turned--
And smashed herself, and her precious sundae, all over Rorke and her own front.
You could have cut the tension in the air with a well aimed spoon. Everyone was dead silent, watching the stare-down between the two endermen with concerned, trance like obsession. The needed to know what would happen next, but also wanted to stay out of the danger radius. Jemma would never know exactly why, but she backed down, shoving past him and running outside, where she disappeared in a shower of violet sparks.
--
Jemma just picked the first place she knew no one would find or follow her, and where she would have space to hate herself in peace. Seh teleported as far as she could and, magically spent, ran the rest of the way to the old grounds-keepers’ guest house just outside Hillote School for Reformed Monsters’ grounds and walls.
The guest house was incredibly decrepit, vines of ivy and kudzu taking hold in any weakness of the structure and crumbling it away.
Kind of relevant, Jemma thought.
The door was locked, but so rusted and weathered that it fell inward with a simple kick. Jemma stepped in, watching for loose, broken or rotting floorboards. The place was dark, missing one entire corner of the structure and boasting an upturned table and one oddly pristine and new-looking chair.
There was an air of stillness, like time was not a welcome guest here. Like this was a place time couldn’t touch or affect, even though it clearly had by the state of it. It was just so serene.
Jemma sat in the chair and pulled her knees to her chest as it started to rain.
5
Jemma lifted her head from its place buried in her knees when she heard an enderman in pain and the sounds of compulsive teleportation.
Rorke had come for her. In the rain.
Enderman could not stand to have water, even a drop, touch their skin. It burned them like acid.
To do what Rorke was attempting was suicidal.
With a pained keen, he finally stopped teleporting just under the half-collapsed porch awning in front of the guest house. Almost timidly, Jemma extended one leg. Like a wedge in the crack of a dam, something burst open, and she leapt from the chair to his side.
“What in the End are you doing here? You hate me!” Jemma mustered a snarl.
“Shut up. That was stupid, just taking off like that.” Rorke assessed the damage to his skin, little pink burn scars peppering his shoulders, arms and back.
“And you suddenly care, why?” She snapped.
“Would you rather I leave you?”
“Gee, yeah, I came to this abandoned house to throw a rutting party! SURPRISE!” She threw her good hand up in exasperation, dripping with cold sarcasm.
“For End’s sake, you’re INSUFFERABLE!”
“SO STOP SUFFERING ME! YOU HAVE THE POWER, RORKE!” He turned to her, and they were now having the yelling match face to face.
He shoved her. “I don’t think scars are accessories, Jemma!”
“So I ask again: why put yourself out?” She shoved him back with her good arm.
“Are you stupid? No, see, I really need to know how slowly I should talk! You know what your problem is? You’re a wall! Just an obsidian rutting wall and there’s no getting past that for you! You are a flat, impenetrable wall that no one wants to even get to know because you shoot them down and scare them off! You’re obsessed with being strong and ALPHA ENDERMAN! But all you are is angry!”
Jemma couldn’t calculate an answer fast enough. Rorke turned away and hefted half of the broken door over his head to shelter himself from the rain on his way out. He was leaving.
“Wait.” She wanted to hit him, so badly. But he had some fair points.
Jemma rushed to pick up the other half of the door and held it over her head as she picked her way through reeds and sawgrass and cattails, avoiding the more marshy areas.
They didn’t speak, eyes on where their feet were to be placed. Finally, they came to the wall that marked the edge of the school grounds.
Rorke glanced over his shoulder at her. “Jump over and teleport to the gazebo.”
Still sore in the ego, Jemma just nodded. She tossed the door piece over the wall and vaulted, one armed, over the cobblestone wall that only came up to her chest. She hissed as the drizzle scalded her scalp and arms, and any other exposed skin. She hurriedly picked up the door and teleported the remaining distance to the gazebo.
She held up her rain shield and prepared to take off, when she heard him teleport right behind her.
“Hey.” His exhausted voice stopped her and caused her to turn. “I’ll be here a while. Go on ahead. And I owe you a sundae.”
--
“Jemma I absolutely must stress how unwise and unsafe that was! What if something had happened to you? What if a feral monster had found you before Rorke had? It also seems that there is… Instinctual animosity between you two. I want you both to keep distance between yourselves when possible, effective immediately. I’ll explain the same to him as well, whenever he shows his face. And I’m revoking your village visit privileges for two weeks, am I clear?” Jean was angry.
“As glass.” Jemma didn’t dare look anywhere but at one particular rain scar on the back of her hand. The Nether-damned metronome was driving her mad up the walls.
On the way back to her dorm room, Jemma stroked her broken hand with her good one, with feather light touches as if a moth was walking across her bandages. In a trance, she came to her dorm room and for once, did not slam the door.
“There you are! By the Nether, I was so worried about you! And the way Rorke went after you, cussing up a storm-- and then it started to RAIN! I thought you were done for! Are you okay? Sorry-- Shouldn’t have mentioned Rorke…” Opal gushed, a rarity for her.
“He owes me a sundae.” Numbly, Jemma considered whether she should keep up appearances, or admit he wasn’t so bad.
“I’d like a sundae with him.” A look passed between them. “What, he’s handsome…” Opal paled.
“You want a date with him? Really?” Jemma grimaced at her.
“If you wouldn’t mind, yeah.”
“I DON’T. Care.” Jemma really sounded like she cared. “Why would I care?”
“I don’t know! But… You think he’d go for me? I mean I’m so--”
“Beautiful. You’re beautiful. Ask him out.”
“Yeah. Yeah! I’ll try! But for the record… you two would make the perfect power couple.”
6
The next day, Jemma had to stay on school grounds while all her classmates spent the rest of their weekend in the village of Bollebog. She mainly stuck to her dorm, but as one in the afternoon approached, so did the undertones of hunger pains. She needed food. And Opal had moved her snack stash. And she wouldn’t dare eat one of Hearts’ carrots.
So she ventured out to go towards the kitchens for some sweet-snatching practice. On her way, she noticed a new boy, a Creeper, redheaded and wearing green, looking aloof.
When he noticed her, he raised an eyebrow and whistled. “I’d call you a tall drink of water, but I have a feeling you don’t touch the stuff.”
Jemma stopped, tensing up, but forced herself to keep walking. She did not want to be expelled for murder. Even creepers had a soul in there somewhere.
“Hey! Take the rutting compliment!” He was pushing it too far. Jemma kept walking. “Where you going, endbitch?”
“Doing what Dr. Lesenhauer always says to-- getting away from the problem.” She was almost there.
“Coward.”
She was almost there.
Jemma whirled around and teleported to right in front of him, grasped the front of his shirt with her good hand and lifted him up, slamming him against the wall of headmasters’ portraits. Right against the one of Dr. Jean Clark.
“Woah! Heheh, f-feisty huh? Just wanted to ask if you were open--”
“Nothing of mine will ever open for you, you pathetic, bone obsessed hound dog. Maybe try your chances with a male. I hear your kind BLOW quite well.” She used the double entendre to refer to creepers ability to make small explosions, “Now don’t you EVER even BREATHE around me again, got that?” Jemma dropped him and he slid down the wall, his knees buckling and landing him on his ass.
Jemma was walking away when he seemed to process her verbal assault. Dr. Clark’s portrait was crooked now.
“You’ll regret this, enderbitch!” He called after her. She kept her stride all the way to the kitchens.
--
A Husk sat at the corner table in the kitchen, staring down at his plate of rotten meat. Jemma, forcing herself to swallow the rising bile at the odor (she could not distinguish if it was coming from him or the meat,) sat down across from him. His lazy, catatonic grin turned up to mouth-breathe in her direction, further encouraging her stomach’s fit.
She mustered a polite wave, remembering Opal’s advice. You’re a diamond, she told herself, now sparkle like one. She gave a charming smile, tucking her long black hair behind her ear, where it defiantly, would never stay.
The sandy, dry undead was utterly and immediately taken in. Slowly, he reached his desiccated hand across the way and took hers. As knobbly and dried up and shrivelled as it was, it was not entirely unpleasant. Jemma’s smile turned from forced to genuine.
“Samahd.” He rasped, sand trickling from the corners of his mouth.
“Jemma.” She answered by introducing herself back.
--
The meal she had was made slightly less appetizing due to the odor of her company’s choice of cuisine, but the company itself was pleasant, if a bit awkward. Samahd didn’t speak much, but that was okay. The last thing she wanted was a passionate, informed debate on the state of affairs in Hillote.
By the end, they knew as little about each other as when they’d started, but somehow, Jemma knew she’d made a friend. When she stood up to go, his one milky eye followed her up to her full height.
“Walk you back, Jemma?” He moved to stand.
Jemma thought about the creeper in the front hall. Though she could overpower one easily in a fair fight, creepers were vindictive, and anything but fair.
She smiled. “Yeah. Walk me back.” She offered her good hand. He took it, and they started towards the female dorms.
--
They didn’t run into the creeper, but Samahd walked-- more like shuffled-- so slowly that monsters were flowing back in from the village trip.
Opal spotted them and caught up easily. “Hey Jemma. Who’s this?” She had a suspicious, conniving look on her face.
“Uh-uhm. Samahd.” Jemma answered.
“Uh-uh-uhm! You never stutter. You LIKE--”
“WELL HERE’S MY ROOM, THANKS SAMAHD, GOODNIGHT.” Jemma dropped his hand and pulled Opal into the room, slamming the door after them.
“What, you can’t like a sweet, cute monster boy? Would it hurt your image?” Opal asked.
“You’re pushing it, Opal. We had lunch.”
“So you had a date?”
“No--”
“Yes you did. Jemma had a date. Nothing to be embarrassed about. I had a date today too, with Rorke.”
7
Jemma froze in the process of opening Hearts’ cage to get the rabbit out. For almost a full minute, she said nothing at all.
“I’m so happy for you, Opal.” She said, finally. But why didn’t she feel happy? At least her tone made her lie convincing.
Jemma wished Rorke had left her in the rain.
--
The next few weeks, Jemma spent a lot of time with Samahd, because Opal was spending a lot of time with Rorke and he and Jemma were meant to avoid each other anyway. Samahd was incredibly sweet, and eager, laid-back, easygoing.
Jemma went to Lesenhauer’s therapy sessions religiously, both group and private. In group however, she did not share, and in the private sessions never approached the topic of Rorke, until one day when roiling confusing feelings threatened to shatter her.
“He called me a wall.” she suddenly said, gently massaging the palm of her now healed hand.
“Excuse me?” Dr. Lesenhauer looked up from his notes.
“Rorke.” She swallowed to try and tame the angry lump in her throat. “Called me a wall.”
“He did? When was this?”
“The night I ran away from the village trip.” She looked up at him.
“Do you… believe that’s accurate in any way?” He started writing again.
Jemma brought her knees to her chest. She didn’t want to answer that. “He’s dating my roomie. Opal.”
“Does that hurt you?”
She shook her head, too quickly to be believable. “But if he hurts Opal, Dr. Lesenhauer… I’m getting expelled.”
“Hmm. Let’s work on this.”
--
Some days, Jemma found herself at the rear of the campus, staring out the rusted gate at the groundskeeper’s house. She was wondering who had once lived there. Why no one replaced them whenever that person left.
One such day, she noticed a familiar void-black, violet-eyed face leaving from the house while a large white form wailed for him to stay. He caught sight of Jemma and blinked out of sight with a shower of royal purple sparks.
He must have read her mind, or else, the pure raging supernovas in her furious, terrifying eyes. Jemma teleported into the house to find Opal in a desperate state. “Opal, what did he do?”
“Don’t hurt him, Jemma, please, I just-- It’s my fault anyway, I-- Oh, don’t hurt him!” her hands were wreathed in flame, the power all ghasts had. With one Banshee’s wail, a wave of flame and force pulsed from her, setting everything ablaze.
“Opal!” Jemma cried out as a rafter beam fell on her friend, and Opal’s fresh scream pierced the air once more. “Hang on, I’ll go get a pigman to help! Just stay still!” she was going to KILL Rorke when she saw him next. Threat of expulsion or no. Just not in front of Opal.
Jemma ran outside and teleported back to the school, shouting at anyone she passed: “FIRE! FIRE AT THE GROUNDSKEEPER’S HOUSE! OPAL’S TRAPPED, SOMEONE HELP!”
She definitely got some attention. Dr. Clark rounded up a half dozen pigmen, who were naturally immune to flame, and an iron golem to lift what was pinning Opal. “Lead the way, Jemma.”
--
“Please, Jemma, all he did was break up with me. Don’t hurt him. I’ll be okay after a couple weeks.” Opal sobbed in the nurse’s office.
“Why did he break up with you?” Jemma growled, unsatisfied, as she watched the witch douse Opal’s leg with salve.
“He… He said there was another girl, but… I think it was because I’m fat…”
“Either way I’m kicking his ass.” Jemma said flatly.
“You do and you’re gone, Jemma. You came to Hillote to reform, to break past the stereotype of violence. Not to perpetuate it.” Dr. Clark slipped into the room. “I want to know why you were there at the guest house. Now.”
“He asked me there. Now I suppose it was just to leave me.” Fresh sobs welled up in Opal’s throat.
“I don’t know, Dr. Clark. It’s just peaceful there. Private.” Jemma sighed. “I had no idea they were there.”
“Well don’t go back. That place is officially off limits. Get some rest.” She gave a stern glare to them both.
When the witch was done with Opal’s leg, Jemma walked alongside her in case the crutches weren’t enough for her. Jemma’s enraged facade put off most of the stares.
There happened to be a gaggle of girls and Dr. Lesenhauer surrounding their dorm room door. They were whispering in low tones, gossiping.
“Move.” Jemma snapped.
“Jemma, I’m so sorry… Someone went into your room and… well, it’s Hearts.” Lesenhauer tried to move between her and whatever all those girls had been staring at.
“What do you--” She finally saw what he meant. The roommates’ pet rabbit had been slashed up, and on the door, “YOU HAVE NO HEART” was painted in blood.
8
Besides Opal and Samahd, Hearts the rabbit had been the only thing Jemma held love for. Jemma didn’t leave the room for days. It must have been the creeper. Another name on her steadily growing hit list.
Opal brought Jemma her missed classwork, and though he could not enter the room, being a boy, Samahd brought her meals and treats. She pretended to accept gratefully, but in reality barely touched each plate. She usually gave the rest to Opal.
On the sixth day, Dr. Lesenhauer suggested that she come on the village trip with the class. Her stiff muscles protested, Weak from being sedentary for so long, but she forced herself to get up. She dressed the way she had before this mess had all started, black on black on black. She hoped to blend in so well that she might actually fade to nothing.
Opal picked through her hair as always, and Jemma stood and slung her bag over her shoulder to go, but Opal didn’t move. She was still in her pajamas. “Opal?”
“Go ahead. Rorke will be there. I don’t think I can see him without crying yet. Bring me something from the chocolatier, okay?”
“Oh, Opal, I don’t want to go alone…”
“Take Samahd. A date.” She insisted.
So with Samahd she went.
To be quite honest, Jemma was with Samahd purely to be with someone. Anyone at all. He was so sweet and eager to please, so that made things easy for her. They walked hand in hand around marshy Bollebog village, finally ending in the chocolatier’s shop. While Samahd ordered, Jemma split off to search the bon bon and truffle displays for Opal’s favorite.
“Hey.” The last voice she wanted to hear sounded from right behind her.
She whirled to face Rorke, chest puffed in indignation. She noticed he was sporting a bandaged hand. She posed the silent question.
He didn’t answer it. “I still owe you a sundae.” He jerked his head at the counter, where Samahd was still trying to decide what he wanted.
“That’s okay. My boyfriend will get me one.” She stalked past him, leaving him speechlessly and indignantly staring where she had just been. He whirled and followed her.
“Who?” He snapped. He was just in time to watch Jemma stoop down and plant a kiss on Samahd’s forehead. He grinned and stood on tiptoes to give Jemma a more tender kiss on the lips.
Samahd was suddenly hauled away from her and kicked square in the sternum.
“RORKE!” The assailing enderman grabbed Jemma and pulled her into teleporting with him.
As soon as the two landed in the cow paddock, Jemma’s closed fist cracked across Rorke’s cheekbone with a right hook. He staggered, but steadied, coming back with an uppercut to her chin. She punched him again, a left straight to his nose, which flowed easy with blackberry colored blood. He fell back in the tall grass and Jemma was on him, and they rolled in the meadow, landing hit after hit in a no-holds barred brawl.
Finally, only because of minimally superior male enderman muscle, Rorke got her pinned with a warbling, distorted growl. She struggled of course, bucking under him.
“Stop. Stop! JEMMA, STOP!” He surprised her into obeying. She was still very unhappy being under him, giving a rattling growl right back. “You wanna know why my knuckles are messed? I knocked that creeper’s rutting block off! The one that killed your rabbit.”
“How do you even know about that?”
“Because he was bragging about getting even with ‘that enderbitch’.”
“Why do you care?” She grumbled.
“Why does that matter? I care! Stop asking me why! You really wanna know why?”
“Yes!” She shouted at his face.
Rorke ducked down and kissed her, fiercely. She grunted. This felt right, so right to her instincts, but she knew Opal would never forgive her if she got with her ex only a week after he broke up with her!
But by the End he was a great kisser.
When he relinquished her lips and let her up, she panicked and teleported away.
--
She sloughed into her and Opal’s room, exhausted, nursing bruises that thankfully didn’t show on night sky skin. She was hyper-conscious of every move she made. She was so paranoid that any little movement look or tone would give away what Jemma viewed as the ultimate best friend code betrayal.
“I’m… Opal, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t able to get your chocolates.” By the End, her voice broke.
“Nether. It’s okay, there’s always tomorrow.” She was absorbed in a book report assignment.
“Uhm. I don’t think I should go tomorrow. I… don’t feel good.” She sat gingerly on her bed.
“Oh? What’s wrong? Eat your sundae too fast?” Opal offered a gently teasing smile.
“I didn’t get my sundae.”
“That sucks. Why?” She put down her quill. Jemma needed an excuse, fast.
“I broke up with Samahd.”
9
Jemma spent the next month avoiding Rorke like the plague and pretending the fight-- and the kiss-- never happened.
Yet another nuisance to add to her list of “Things Gone Terribly Wrong” was that Dr. Lesenhauer knew something was off. She hadn’t shared in group therapy in three months, and was giving short answers and refusing to elaborate in private sessions.
In the winter, another new boy came, a Wither Skeleton, and from the jump had eyes only for Jemma. She went along, thinking if she busied herself with another relationship and did what Dr. Lesenhauer said (remove yourself from the problem) that things would be okay. That things would go back to normal.
The Wither Skeleton Nikolai, was just as possessive, single-minded, and angry as Jemma had once been and was again becoming. When he asked (more like told) her to go to the winter dance with him, she accepted without thought. That’s what couples did, go to events and parties with each other. Right?
--
“Oh, Jemma, this one is so your style!” Opal’s usual tailor and Opal herself were helping her shop for a dress.
“Nikolai wants to match, and he’s going all black, though.” Jemma appraised the lavender and blackberry dress with sparkling tulle at the hips. She actually would like to wear it, or something like it. But what Nikolai says, goes.
“We’re not letting you go in ALL black. It’s the winter Candle Gala, not a funeral.” Opal snorted.
Jemma silently wished that it was a funeral; her own.
Why didn’t any of her feelings make sense anymore? Things with Nikolai were miserable. Things with Samahd had been nice, but missing something. Things with Rorke were… complicated.
“Opal?”
“Hm?” She stopped looking through dresses hung on a rack and turned to Jemma.
“Are things still painful with… with Rorke? Do you still love him?”
The ghast girl paused. “Where is this coming from?”
“Curiosity. You know he beat up the creeper that killed Hearts.” Jemma pretended to inspect a dress’ price tag. “Do you think that’s because he still cares?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not stuck on him, no. He was… distant, with me. Like his attention was somewhere else. I suppose with the other girl.” Jemma felt a stab of guilt as she realized that the other girl was probably her. “I really just wanted to see if a guy so handsome would ever give me a chance in the first place.”
“Well he did. That means any guy you want, you have a real decent shot with.” Jemma encouraged.
“Hm. Yeah.”
Jemma turned to her as she fiddled with the laces of a bustier. “What?”
“What if it’s not a guy?”
Jemma dropped all the dresses in her arms that she had planned to try on. She scrambled to pick them up. “Who?”
“Shh!” Opal moved to help in order to get closer. “Silke.” She whispered.
“Silke? The most popular cave spider in Hillote, Silke?” Jemma hissed back.
“Stop saying it out loud! I don’t even know if she likes girls. You run with her crowd sometimes… Could you… I don’t know, get close to her and ask?”
“What if she starts to think I’m the one with the crush? What then?”
“I have some… uh… love letters. You work with her in class sometimes, so she’d know it’s not your handwriting. Please just deliver them. Don’t let anyone else read them, okay?”
“Anything speak to you, ladies?” The tailor returned.
“Yeah, I’ll take this.” Jemma held up a black dress with just enough purple lace to bring out her eyes.
--
Approaching Silke at school was difficult. She was ever surrounded by her clique, more cave spiders, upright humanoids with pallid skin, eight eyes, and spider bodies below the hips. They were smaller than tarantulas, and venomous in more than one meaning of the word.
“Best make things quick.” Jemma muttered to herself as she approached the swarm. She cleared her throat and they turned to stare, parting like the clouds after a storm.
“Yeah, Jemma? We’re kind of planning an afterparty for the Candle Gala. Morgan’s bringing dizzy potions and everything. You in?”
“Yeah, whatever, but I also wanted to give you this.” Jemma handed over a thin journal that Opal had filled with poetry and confessions, then wrote ‘Candle Gala with Opal?’ on the front.
“Oh, thank you!” Silke said with all the enthusiasm of a child receiving socks for their birthday. “So Opal wants to go to the dance with me, huh? Opal… The hot air balloon Opal?”
“Look, even if you turn her down, don’t humiliate her, okay? She’s sincere. And nice, if you get to know her. Don’t let her down, please, Silke?”
Silke giggled, and a wave of giggles rippled through her posse. “I’d never dream of it, Jemma.”
10
It took a grand total of six hours.
Opal stormed into the dorm room in desperate, hysterical tears. She collapsed on her bed and hugged her pillow close, shrieking into it.
“Opal! What in the Nether happened to you?”
“They’re everywhere, Jemma! She put them everywhere, to mock me! All the letters, the confessions, the poems, Everybody’s read them all now!” She wailed, nearly drowning out the knock at their dorm room door.
Jemma opened it just enough to tell whoever it was to piss off, when Rorke pushed his way in. “Hey!” She was appalled to see him of all people. “This is the girls’ dorms, you can’t be in here!”
“I took them down, but I can’t erase memories. That was horrible, what she did. But Opal, you’ve got to calm down before you set another fire.” He went to her side.
Jemma grabbed his shoulder and turned him to face her. “Why are you here, Rorke?” She snarled. He had sheafs of paper in his hands.
“Because I care, Jemma. I won’t stop caring, no matter what! No matter how hurt one of us makes the other, I’ll always be there, and I will ALWAYS care!”
“You care?” Jemma huffed.
“Yes!”
“You really care?”
“YES!”
“Then let’s go get that pest back for hurting my roomie.”
“Gladly!” He threw the papers in the wastebasket and stalked out of the room. Jemma followed.
--
“SILKE, YOU DEPRAVED EIGHT LEGGED BITCH! LOOK AT ME!” Jemma shouted at the cave spider swarm from down the hall.
As a unit, they turned and parted.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I must have gotten those pitiful, disgusting love letters confused with Gala posters! My fault.” she giggled.
“There will be a fault in your skull when I’m done with you.” Jemma sneered.
“Lesenhauer would be so proud of his pet for finally controlling her anger. Maybe if you didn’t keep such pathetic company, this wouldn’t trigger you so badly.”
“You’re the one who’s pathetic, Silke, and after this everyone will know it.”
“Ah ah ah! You’re on your last strike, endergirl. You can’t touch me without getting expelled.
“That’s why you’re being expelled, Silke.” Dr. Clark said from behind her. “We reform monsters at Hillote, we don’t bully them.We have a no tolerance policy. You have two hours to pack your belongings.”
“But Dr. Clark, I--”
“One hour and fifty-nine minutes…”
Silke scuttled away, fuming and cursing. Rorke stood proudly beside Dr. Clark. He locked eyes with Jemma, who wanted to cheer, leap into his arms and kiss him… But Nikolai was in the crowd too. Her triumph faded in the blink of her teleporting away.
--
Jemma did not know if she wanted Rorke, Opal, or Nikolai to find her first. Any way it went, she had a sneaking feeling she’d be disappointed under this gazebo.
A distance away, someone opened the vegetable garden’s gate. It was none of the three. It was Dr. Lesenhauer. He strolled with all the urgency of a creeping glacier, down the path, but stopped at the rabbit hutch. He beckoned Jemma over to him, who reluctantly went.
“Go on. Which of them strikes your fancy?” He nodded to the hutch.
“I’m… I’m sorry, what?”
“I feel bad about Hearts. Of course, he could never be replaced, rest his soul, but you seem lonely. Pick one.” He opened the gate into the small, muddy hutch. “Before they all get out, please.” he teased.
Jemma stepped inside and the gate clicked closed behind her. She stood awkwardly, not wanting to step on a rabbit. She looked at them all, just quietly shuffling amongst them.
Then, a black one hopped right up to her, sniffling her little pink nose at her boots. She melted, right then and there.
--
Jemma held little Ender in her lap in Lesenhauer’s office, petting her ears and just… being.
“I don’t know what to say, Doctor.” She mumbled.
“Then don’t say anything. Silence isn’t bad.”
She absorbed this for a moment. “I don’t want to go to the Gala with Nikolai.” she stated.
“Then why tell him you do?”
“Because… the other option complicates things.”
“What is the other option, if you don’t mind?”
Jemma regarded the silkiness of Ender’s perfect ears for a long moment. “It wouldn’t work anyway.”
“You’re assuming it wouldn't. It might. You can’t know.” Lesenhauer regarded his book of notes.
“Nikolai wouldn’t let me.”
11
“I’m sorry, but… ‘let’ you? I wasn’t aware your boyfriend held as much authority as your parent.” Lesenhauer chuckled light-heartedly, but sobered when Jemma shot him a grim look. “Does Nikolai not let you do many things?”
“He grabbed me by the throat once, when I said I wouldn’t make out with him. He shoved me against my dorm room door once because my dress showed the tops of my stockings. He almost never lets me hang out with Opal or Samahd anymore.” She could go on.
“Jemma, I am going to ask you this once, and I’d like an honest answer. Do you need help getting away from Nikolai?”
For the first time since childhood, Jemma let a tear roll down her cheek. Ender’s squeal scared her into realizing that she had been holding the rabbit too hard. She released her with a gasping sob.
“Yes.”
--
Jemma prayed that no one would notice her sniffling, or her swollen eyes, but it went unanswered. Nikolai was approaching from the direction of the foyer and saw her. He rushed to her and pressed his forearm to her throat. “I hear Clark wants to see me. If you’ve been lying about me, bitch, you’ll never forget the lesson I’ll teach you!”
Jemma was so concerned about keeping him from hurting Ender that her eyes were closed tight when he was rammed off of her and to the ground.
Rorke was on him, throwing punch after punch. “Rorke, STOP!” She yelled desperately. If anyone in those faculty offices came out right now and got the wrong idea, she’d have to watch Rorke be expelled and be stuck with the greater of two evils.
Humans came out of doors, and monsters came running to see the absolute beatdown happening, students egging them on with chants of “fight, fight, fight!” while faculty tried to haul Rorke off of Nikolai.
“STOP THIS SAVAGE NONSENSE IMMEDIATELY!” Dr. Clark’s voice rang out. “Will SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME why I shouldn’t expel EVERYONE in this hallway??”
“Nikolai was the aggressor, Dr. Clark. I can explain the whole situation.” Dr. Lesenhauer came forward. “But I should do so in one of our offices, if you don’t mind.”
“Very well. You two in Lesenhauer’s office, Nikolai in mine. Now.” She shooed the others away and the three involved obeyed, Nikolai and Rorke sharing a vicious look of pure hate.
--
“Was he acting like this towards you the whole time, Jemma?” Rorke was pacing the office and the muffled thud of his feet on the rug was driving Jemma insane.
“Rorke--”
“Don’t lie. Please. You don’t have to be so strong all the time. Why did you put up with that?”
Jemma hugged Ender close, and didn’t answer.
“Jemma… Do I have to tattoo it on me for you to believe I cared about you from the moment I heard you lie about what I did to your hand? And you may not admit it, but you care about me too. No more lies.” He knelt in front of her and pet Ender’s ears so tenderly and gently it was like he was petting the soft part of her soul. One of the last soft parts left, she’d thought.
And when he looked up into her eyes, she felt that soft part glow.
--
“With this new information about Jemma’s, well, ex, and even though I do NOT approve of Rorke’s method of defending her, I will lift the restriction on your being near each other on the one and strict condition that you’ve both gotten the violence out of your system.” Dr. Clark said. She had the rarely seen Iron Golems escort Nikolai off the campus.
“Absolutely, Dr. Clark.” Rorke said, and Jemma nodded in agreement.
“Good, Rorke--”
“Yes ma’am?” He looked to Clark.
“For all our sakes, don’t you dare break her heart.”
---
Rorke walked Jemma back to her dorm room. He stopped her at the door with a hand on her elbow.
Before he could say anything, however, Opal opened the door to come out of the room.
Both enderfolk looked like they’d been caught in the daylight. Opal looked between them wiht a blank look on her face that turned to a grin, and then uncontrollable giggles.
“What’s funny?” Jemma snapped.
“You remember how I told you, Jemma, that you two would make the perfect power couple?” Opal calmed enough to get the words out.
“And?” Jemma said a little too loudly.
“I’ll just say you both have my blessing.” Opal winked and brushed past them both. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
Rorke watched her go, then cleared his throat. “Maybe we should do this the normal way?”
“You DO still owe me a sundae.”
12
The Candle Gala was always a celebration of the new year. This year was a celebration of a new Jemma.
Of course, she was as irritable, defensive, and surly as ever, but Rorke helped her to laugh. With Rorke she never had to worry about making someone jealous, or what she wore, or who she was around. When Rorke and Jemma walked into a room people turned and stared in awe. Jemma found herself smiling more, sharing more in group. Private sessions had her problems and feelings flowing more freely.
Jemma examined herself in her chosen dress in the vanity. Opal was trying to make her hair behave.
“Why do we have to wear our hair up?” Jemma huffed, flinching as Opal tugged at a knot.
“Because the Candle Gala only happens once a year. So we do things that WE only do once a year.” Opal smiled, leaning her head down beside Jemma’s. The contrast of void black to powder white was stark.
“Right… Once a year.” Jemma smirked as she began to hatch a plan.
--
The dance was every bid as sparkling and as gaudy as the vice headmaster could have arranged it to be. Sheer curtains and drapes glimmered over every french door in the ballroom, and faberge eggs stood on pedestals in between. Soft swing played by a live human band had people and monsters dancing.
Jemma found herself shaking with nerves, especially having her plan in mind. When Rorke asked her to dance, she balked, but forced herself to dance with him, trembling through the steps like nothing was wrong, but he could see something was up.
“Are you okay?” he asked, stopping the dance.
She wanted to do this, but not in front of everyone. “Can we step outside?” She forced her voice out, barely managing a croak.
“Of course.” He offered her an arm and she gratefully accepted, heading through to the patio and hedge garden.
She decided to start her speech. “Rorke. These past two months have been truly magical for me. I can only hope they have been for you. I mean I--”
“Hush.” He was distracted.”
“What? Rorke, I’m trying to--”
“HUSH!”
This pissed her off. “Look if you can’t manage to pay attention, then--”
An arrow suddenly sank into a zombie’s back not ten feet from them. Jemma now knew why he had been shushing her. He grabbed her hand and together they teleported to the hedges, ducking between them for cover.
“Humans. They must be against the school.” Rorke growled.
“Does that mean we’re allowed to kill them?” She offered uselessly.
“If we can’t avoid it, maybe, I think life or death is an exception.” he huffed.
“But we should try to wait for the faculty to handle it, right?” They heard arrows hit and ran amongst the hedge art to dodge.
“If we can.” They teleported again, right in time for a crossbow bolt to whizz by. There was no telling what the humans wanted. If they were simply vindictive, they might not stop until every monster at Hillote was dead.
Through a hedge wall they heard the angry squeal of pain from a pigman, fresh on the prowl after whatever had hit him. Pigmen's anger rivalled that of an enderman who had been looked at funny. The only difference being pigmen were pacifists until you hit them first.
“There goes the exchange student from the Nether..” Jemma said under her breath.
Rorke pulled her down so they were both ducking. Whoever hit the pigman was being ripped apart. Should they assist in the assault? It could end up being a case of them or him. A flash and sudden heat told them that Sparks the blaze-- a “reform” student with a discipline record as thick as Jemma’s-- was having a ball in the chaos. He flew overhead, cackling and hurling fireballs left and right. He’d talked about needing an excuse to trash the school for years.
“Come on, Jemma, you could snap this asshole’s neck! Don’t just hide out!” He called as he swooped low. Jemma let out a terse breath. Of course he had to give them away.
“There must be more around here, check!” There was a horrid snorting shriek as the pigman was slain. Jemma knew that if any more of his kind had been there, things would have been very different.
The hedge around them was being slashed and hacked apart. Rorke tugged her arm to get her attention. “Split up. Go. They can’t catch you.”
“You are NOT fighting them alone.”
“There!” One of the humans shouted.
“GO!” Rorke shoved her and they both teleported in different directions.
Jemma forced herself to run. Her high heel snapped, so she hopped until she got both shoes off and threw them aside. Her legs were too constricted, so with a curse, she ripped her skirt with up the side so she could sprint properly.
Somehow, she knew a safe place to go, where she could meet up with Rorke.
The old groundskeepers house, looming in the dark, muggy night with fireflies and mosquitoes whizzing by as air filled and voided Jemma’s chest with each pump of her legs. She ran like she never ran before.
A crossbow bolt hit a tree as she slipped past it, and she looked, only for a branch to fill her face with leaves for one valuable second. She tripped, falling to the grass with a grunt.
“Caught the enderbitch!” one shouted. “Get the nets!”
Nets? This was no senseless attack. Were they working with Pillagers? One thing was certain.
She really hated being called enderbitch.
She teleported towards them, ending up behind the one that had almost shot her. She whirled and roundhouse kicked him in the back of the head. She saw two on either side of her, turn shoot--
She teleported out of the way just in time for their bolts to fly and hit each other in the forehead.
A net flew at her, but she teleported and it wrapped around a tree. A rattling roar filled the air and her jaw unhinged, her full and very angry form invoked. She appeared and disappeared between them, snapping weapons, snapping necks, until with a mechanical twang--
A net closed around Rorke, who had teleported in front of her.
“We’ve got one, leave her!”
“Are you sure? We need--”
“She’s too dangerous, we’ll find more pearls somewhere else! Leave her!” The leader made a hand signal and they all threw down splash potions and disappeared, dragging Rorke with them.
Jemma fell to her knees. Pearls. Ender pearls. If that’s what they were after… ender pearls could only be harvested two ways. Either the enderman gave it voluntarily, or by death, collected from their body. Jemma had planned to give Rorke her pearl at the dance. And now, those humans would kill him for his.
13
“Jemma, we’re tracking them. We won’t let them harm Rorke.”
“That’s if they haven’t already. I want to go with you.” She paced angrily.
“You can’t. If they’re after pearls, then you’re not safe either.” Kaine tried to sound calming, but it was more infuriating.
“Are you going to stop me, Lesenhauer?”
“Is that a threat?”
“Only if you try to make me stay.”
“Shall we stake your status as a student on it?” Dr. Clark snapped.
“I’m considering getting expelled for this. Strongly considering.”
“Jemma, you’ve been doing so well…”
“Yeah! Because of Rorke!” She hated that her voice broke, and she sat down with force, making the chair creak. “I was going to give him my pearl…” She admitted to the room.
Silence followed.
“Maybe he’ll cooperate and they’ll release him?” Opal offered. Jemma looked at her as if she was about to explode.
“We all know he’s too proud.”
“Well, no… If he thinks it’s the only way to safely get back to you, he might.” She rationalized.
“Opal, pearl stuff is weird to us.”
“I know. So are Ghast tears.” She said.
“I guess they’re similar. You never talk to me about ghast stuff.” she was suddenly offended that Opal hadn’t trusted her with that knowledge.
“You never exactly asked, and before recently you weren’t up for… emotional conversations.”
“You’re right.” Even admitting that, Jemma couldn’t say the word sorry for some reason. Now wasn’t the time. “But how are we going to get him back?” She insisted.
“I'll help.” Opal offered.
“We’d rather not involve students.” Kaine said gently.
“And what are you going to do, Lesenhauer? Counsel them to death? ‘How was your childhood? Did your parents treat you well?’” Jemma was too angry for this, they were wasting her time.
“Do you think that’s for decoration?” Dr. Clark gestured to a glittering sword on a mount, expertly cut from brilliant diamond, sharp as Jemma’s angry tongue. It didn’t even have a speck of dust.
Jemma was speechless as Jean Clark, headmistress of Hillote Monster Reform School, stood and crossed the room, took the sword down and ran her hand along the flat of the blade. It sang as though it had long awaited this moment.
Jemma was vaguely glad that expulsion was the worst punishment at Hillote. That thing could run her through, no matter how angry she got at it.
“Okay, but still, plan??”
“We have faculty tracking them, and any moment they’ll return with a report. We need to not run blindly at this, like you so often do.” Dr. Clark said.
As if they’d been summoned by her very words, a knock sounded at the office door, followed by it opening anyway. It was the art therapist of all people, Deserae.
“They’re holed up a few miles on the other side of Bollebog. They’ve found the stronghold, and are searching for the portal with Rorke as a hostage. They’ve killed Sparks for his powder and they plan to make the final eye with Rorke’s pearl after he leads them to the portal.”
“They’re going after the Ender Dragon?” Jemma felt everything else wash away and allowed herself, at once, to feel dumb and helpless. These humans sought to kill her and all the endermen's guardian and god? Of course, endermen could still exist without the dragon, but as a boss creature, the dragon’s energy fed the End as a realm. Without her, Jemma would never see her home again. Her family were there, and those humans might just kill them while they were at it. “You-- you have to-- please let me come. This is now a matter involving my entire race, I can’t stand by.”
“Jemma…” Jean looked at her with the most sympathetic look possible. “Alright. But please be able to recognize if things are going poorly and get out of there.”
“I will.” she lied.
--
Walking through Bollebog, outfitted for battle, was a strange experience. Villagers regarded them like one would expect, Hrm-ing and Hawh-ing at their arms, and even Jemma wore an iron helmet and an awkwardly large chainmail shirt. She carried no weapon, as an enderman’s hands could do more damage than any sword, except perhaps Clark’s diamond blade.
They even let a couple of the truly exemplary students come along, Kelly the skeleton, Lilliae the spider, and even a Drowned followed them with splatting footsteps and gurgles. Night gave them cover, so Kelly wouldn’t burn. Kelly was outfitted in full leather, Lilliae nothing, for ease of movement, and Eddie the drowned in iron, with a shining trident.
They came upon a hastily vacated camp. Embers scattered, a spit with bones cast aside. They’d had chicken. A cauldron was bubbling with half its fill of plain water, and an alembic with some potion or other. Jean (it felt so weird to call her Dr. Clark when in battle gear) sniffed it.
“Splash potion of pain.” She took the one full bottle and corked it, handing it to Jemma of all people. “If things get hairy, throw it at the ground and immediately teleport.”
“Yes ma’am.” This Jean was a commander, a general of their tiny army of five humans, all faculty, and five monsters. Jemma looked up at where Opal floated. They were the only two of the group that had never been on any “mission” like this before. One had to wonder how often these things happened at Hillote. If graduated, or “reformed” monsters had nowhere to go after completing their program, they were welcome to stay, but few ever did. Most became vagrants, or entrepreneurs in and around the villages in the area, like Bollebog. Jemma knew there was a witch that owned the restaurant.
But she would graduate on her own time. After she’d thinned her discipline file. Now was boyfriend saving time.
Not far from the camp was a gaping blown hole in the rock of Culcutt cliff, the “wall” of Bollebog. The hole led down to a hidden ravine, a giant slash in the rock with water at the bottom. Opal flew in to scout it out, Kaine covering her back with a crossbow. After flying the length of the ravine, a delicate echoing whimper came from the darkness, and a torch waved. She had found the entrance to the stronghold. Luckily, the humans had built scaffolding, and Lilliae could easily climb up or down with spider legs and all. The group made their way around the edge of the ravine that was, at places, so thin that they could touch the other wall, and Lilliae walked sideways, staying hunched ahead of the group. Eight eyes were better than two. Opal kept the air clear.
They came to the stronghold entrance and a dark stairwell yawned before them with a breathy groan, swallowing their torchlight like it was starving for light and life. Jemma was scared. She didn’t remember this place. In fact, she couldn’t remember the end, much. Many endermen couldn’t.
Deserae had said that Rorke was leading them. Had he come this way as his first steps into this realm? She had to wonder. Opal had been born in the Nether. Samahd, when they had been talking together, had been raised in the desert. Nikolai a Nether fortress.
Why couldn’t Jemma remember the End?
She was brought out of her frustrated haze by Jean’s hand on her arm. Jemma looked down at the headmistress, then back at the daunting passage.
Would instinct guide her?
“We’ll find him, Jemma.”
“But what if we’re too late? I couldn’t bear finding his body.” She muttered, not even making an echo from the pit. A silverfish skittered and squeaked past her feet.
“We won’t.”
She thought, but did not say: Won’t find his body, or won’t find him?
14
Creeping down the stairs was torture for Jemma and Opal. Jemma was too tall and too frazzled for this passage, and often lost her footing. Opal, puffed up to fly, was constantly brushing up against walls, squeezing through with rocks poking her. Lilliae had to help push her through some sections.
The first room they came to was a library with a spider spawner and so many cobwebs that Jean took the lead, slashing them down, and slaying the feral spiders. Lilliae didn’t seem offended. Opal landed and let out the breath she was holding. She was still vast, though, and struggled between the shelves.
They lit up the spawner to stop the spiders from appearing, and took what was useful from any chests, though not much was left, and moved on.
The next room was a trap. The iron door shut when they crossed a tripwire, and zombies dropped from the ceiling. Everyone rushed to battle, and Jemma saw Opal puff up and let out a warning shout. The group scattered before she let out a fireball that torched the feral undead and crumbled the very stone in some places. Kelly slipped, and Deserae grabbed her by the arm, hauling her back into the room.
“I’m so sorry!” Opal was breathing heavily from effort.
“It’s okay, collateral happens.” Kelly didn’t seem ruffled.
The iron door on the other side of the room clattered open, and on the other side was Lilliae. She pointed up to a her-sized hole with a lever, now switched on.
They pressed on.
Through several more rooms and halls, they fought and puzzled, and climbed and jumped. This place was falling apart, and there were more than a few close calls.
Finally a sound. Jemma stopped dead in the middle of a hallway as Eddie was stomping and stabbing silverfish.
She recognized that sound.
An audible shimmering, and the soft bubbling of lava.
“It’s through here.” She pointed to the wall directly to her left.
“Through there? You’re sure?” Jean squashed a silverfish.
“I’ve never been more sure in my life.” She looked for any kind of trip mechanism or weakness in the wall.
“If I blast it, the floor under us goes, too. I shouldn’t do that in close quarters.” Opal warned.
“How can we get through? If we don’t we-- I might lose Rorke.” Jemma began to panic. She couldn’t hear anything else through the wall. What if his lifeless body was just on the other side, waiting to stare into her very soul with the endless silent taunt of “you weren’t quick enough?” She turned and started to scrabble at the very brick, bull rushing the wall with her shoulder. She would get through this damned wall if her arms were bloody stumps by the end of it.
“Jemma! Jemma, stop!” Jean tried to pull her back.
“ONE OF YOU DIDN’T BRING A FUCKING PICKAXE?” She shrieked.
“THEY did.” Lilliae was snooping in an abandoned adventurer's pack. She pulled free an almost broken iron pick. Jemma locked her eyes on it and lunged for it.
“Be careful, Jemma, that thing could break if we don’t hit just the right spot.”
“Does one of you specialize in, I don’t know, architecture? Or Geology?” She was losing patience.
Eddie took the pick and hefted it over his shoulder, bending close to inspect the brick with one cataract covered eye. He pulled back and whacked with all his might, once, twice, three times. The wall buckled and busted, water springing forth. Jemma screamed, and rightly so, as the water was already swelling over her feet and soaking into her boots, burning like her very skin was being peeled off by razors on fire. She compulsively teleported some forty feet away, but the water was flowing fast. “They flooded the whole portal room. I don’t see Rorke, but the portal is complete. They used his Pearl.” Someone closer shouted.
Jemma’s heart was ripped from her chest and dropped in the water to sizzle there. They had used his pearl. He was probably dead.
They. Must. Die.
She teleported back to where she had been, roaring in pain at the rushing water washing up to her shins now, reaching into the flow and prying apart the bricks, breaking the floodgates, the gates to her own personal seething wet hell. She waded in, up the short stairs and dove into the portal.
---
For a few moments that felt like a thousand years, everything was blind and maddeningly silent. Then, Jemma landed, writhing in pain, on dusty off white crater filled stone. Towers and other endermen’s bodies surrounded her and the humans were fighting the dragon.
Only one thing moved near her. A familiar enderman was sobbing over two bodies she didn’t recognize.
“Rorke!” She hissed in agony.
“Jemma??” He whirled around. “But they flooded the-- you SWAM??” He crawled to her. Her whole body felt like it was now skinless. Maybe it was.
“We have… to stop them…” She groaned.
“They didn’t get my pearl. They found another enderman in the ruins and left me alone. Said I was too much trouble, but…” He looked back at the two bodies. They must have been relatives.
“I’m sorry.”
“And you SWAM! You could have died too, dumbass!” he nudged her and she sobbed. “I’m sorry! Sorry, sorry…”
She fought through the pain and got to her feet, giving him a hand up. “Let’s snap some fucking necks.” She shed the helmet and chainmail.
For the second time within twenty-four hours, her full, enraged form came to life, her jaw unhinging with a rattling, distorted keen, as she sprinted for the nearest human. He turned away from shooting tower stones and tried to load another bolt, but was quickly broken like a glass tube and thrown aside.
Rorke roared and joined her, headed now for two that were slashing at unaware endermen. They turned in shock and tried to fight, but were easily dispatched by the splash potion from Jean.
The four remaining realized they had been set upon about the time that rabid ender-claws ripped through leather caps and head-flesh, leaving mutilated bodies gurgling and sputtering in their own blood and spittle.
But one, the last vanguard against their mad onslaught, put up a fight. He slashed Jemma’s flank, after stepping out of the way of her screaming attack. He ran, headed for the shelter of a tower when they heard a delicate, echoing whimper--
BOOM.
A ghast blasted him to bits, Jemma calmed, more running out of steam than actually seeing reason to calm.
“Opal.” She saw her fat, pale, guardian angel of explosions descend before her, before her vision went fuzzy and she collapsed.
15
When Jemma woke up, she only saw white. White bandages, white sheets, a white curtain separating her from other infirms, and Opal, her fat white angel. “Opal..?” She croaked.
“She’s up!” Opal snitched, and suddenly her quiet was history, two nurses invading through the curtain and checking her, prodding and poking and patting at bandages until she was more than over it all.
“Alright, alright!” She shooed them, already frustrated.
“There’s the angry enderman we remember.” Jean entered, back in an outfit befitting a headmistress of a school. “How do you feel?”
“Annoyed. What were those nurses testing, that the wounds still hurt? They do. I could have told them that.” Jemma seethed.
Jean smiled fondly. “Glad to see you’re still full of piss and vinegar. Opal, go and get him. We both know we’re not the first faces she wants to see.” She moved aside to let Opal leave. “You’re a hero to ender-kind, Jemma. I’m so proud of you. Opal will have to help you with what to wear.”
“For what?”
“A ceremony, celebrating. We’ve tracked down your parents even, and they’re very proud, too.”
Jemma blanched. Her parents? Around Hillote folk? She came by her anger issues honestly, and there was also the issue of Rorke. Would they approve? “Are we sure that’s a good idea?”
“I’ve made it clear to them our expectations. They’re eager to meet the people who made their daughter into the person she is today. And there’s also the matter of your graduation.”
“My graduation? I thought my discipline file--”
“In light of the circumstances… Well, to put it plainly, discipline file be damned.”
“Dr. Clark, I… Are you sure I’m ready?”
“You’re welcome, as all others are, to stay until you’re on your feet. More than welcome. We’d be honored to have you at Hillote.”
“I will. On one condition.”
“Anything.”
“The old groundskeeper's house… Can Rorke and I stay there?”
“It’s yours. I’ll start some carpenters from Bollebog fixing it up.” She sat delicately on the stool beside her bed.
Rorke rushed right in like he owned Hillote and everything in it. “Jemma!”
“Rorke!” She reached for him, ignoring the burning in her wounded side. “We’ve got to stop getting wounded for each other!”
“Ha! If only, love.” He sat on the side of her bed and took her hands. “I carried you-- after they cleared out the water. Eddie did most of that. I heard they got your parents on the way… Do you think they’ll like me?” After all they’re the only set left to impress. Well, I’m certain my cousins would start a riot for your sake--” He looked at Jean, “Here’s hoping they don’t, but they would!” He gushed.
“Rorke, stop. You’ll be fine. They’ll do fine.” She threw him a charmed smile.
“You’ve both done enough to impress anyone’s parents. I think even mine want your autographs.” Jean joked. “I wouldn’t worry, Rorke.”
“Rorke. We have the guest house. Dr. Clark’s gonna have it fixed up for us.” Jemma gave a genuine grin.
“That’s the perfect end to this.”
“And the perfect start for us.” She squeezed his hand.
“Alright, I get the hint. You two catch up. And you, Jemma, feel better.” Jean smiled and left.
Rorke ducked in for a soft kiss. Jemma welcomed it. She adjusted herself, trying to sit up under him. He pulled away. “I can’t kiss you enough times to make up for you SWIMMING for me! That was literally insane, why did you do it?”
“I was angry.”
He burst out laughing. “That does seem to be your driving force.”
They reminisced in a semi-lively way, gingerly avoiding her side, and soon Opal brought trays of lunch and the nurses seemed to leave them be, thinking the community would do her some good.
--
Jemma woke up in the middle of the dawn hours to sobbing. Looking around, Rorke was sleeping at her side. She leaned over, hissing in pain at the stretch of her flank and yanked the curtain at her other side back to reveal Kelly crying at the bedside of Eddie the Drowned. Kelly gasped and sniffled, quickly trying to hide her tears.
“Sorry. What happened to Eddie? I must have been out for it.” Jemma whispered.
“An… An arrow. To the shoulder. He’ll be okay, but… he’s so pitiful right now.” She replied.
“You wanna see pitiful, you should have seen this one when he’d heard I woke up.” Jemma tried to lighten the mood. Kelly laughed, bones rattling. “Are you… together?”
“We were, for a few weeks. I never got over him.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She looked down at Eddie’s soaked bedsheets.
“I hope you feel better. Goodnight.” Jemma didn’t know how else to terminate the conversation.
“Thanks. Goodnight.” Kelly moved to replace the curtain.
Jemma turned over to face Rorke and ran her fingers through his hair. He stirred, but did not fully wake, clutching her sheets and murmuring in his sleep.
She hoped to never lose him.
16
“Ow!”
“Hold still and I won’t have to pull so hard! You’re going to be the belle of the ball if I have to put you in a WIG! So help me, Jemma!” Opal tugged the comb through a tangle once more to get it out. “You’re a diamond! Say it!”
“I AM A DIAMOND!” Jemma ground out between bared teeth. There were so many curls and loops in her hair that she was lost in it. Her violet and lavender gown went to her knees, and sparkling black stockings made her legs look like the night sky.
“Lord, it sounds like you’re killing her!” Rorke called from outside their dorm.
Opal seemed to have an evil glint in her white eyes. “Pain for perfection!”
“Help!” Jemma reached for Ender the rabbit like she was a lifeline.
“Get back here, Jemma! Now we do your makeup!”
“Your makeup is for pale people!”
“I got some in your color. Now sit!”
So Jemma sat through another half hour of “look up” and “pucker” and “pout” and “close your eyes” commands, until she was made up like a doll. She had to admit she was gorgeous, but it seemed a little artificial.
“Great. Now I'll just cry it all off when my parents get here.”
“Like NETHER you will! No tears!”
“Daub, darling, don’t wipe.” Rorke offered from outside.
“And for your hair, pat, don’t scratch.”
“Thanks for the how-to. Are we done? Or do I also need advice on how to pick my nose?”
“Yeah, don’t.” Opal scoffed.
--
First was the social. Soft music was the lighthearted soundtrack to people and monsters from school, students’ parents, villagers, and VIPs from places Jemma had never heard of. Endermen in suits were everywhere, and they all made a point to introduce themselves to and thank Rorke and Jemma emphatically. She lost track of how many Ambassadors she met and who was the envoy from where. But she was flattered to death that they all thought her so much the hero, and in a way, for a selfish reason, she was. Rorke was too, and she helped venerate him whenever possible. After all, he had fought through the grief of losing his own parents to help her save their race, by way of revenge against half a dozen rogue humans.
Then came the dinner, With Rorke on her right and Jean at the head of the table. Jemma didn’t have Opal to tell her how to eat around her hair and makeup. She simply tried not to let the silverware touch her lipstick. Or the food, her lipstick. Or her glass. Jean noticed. “Relax, Jemma, You’re doing great.”
Then came the toasts and speeches. She tried so hard to pay attention to everybody that spoke, but all she thought about while they talked for minutes on end about the anger caused by humans and felt by endermen, and the menace eliminated by Rorke and Jemma, and the consequences of the now discovered stronghold, the now opened end portal, the now reconnected race to its own ancestors, she kept thinking of how she did this mostly on impulse. Of course, she had known to save the dragon, but Rorke had been first. Though, she’d been angry on behalf of love. So she couldn’t be completely garbage.
Then they wanted her to speak. She stood, looking down at her scarred legs, putting a hand to her aching side. She looked at every enderman expecting the world from her. She thought very carefully about her words.
“I want you all to know that I went into that flooded room out of vengeance. I thought Rorke was dead.” She let that sink in. “I sat here, listening to you all--” Her eyes settled on her parents, “And I loved all the kind words, but I am not the perfect hero. I, like every one of you, am happy, relieved beyond relief that the Dragon is safe, our guardian, our homeland, our people. But I went to the End to kill those humans, not to save the dragon. Now, I effectively did the same thing, but did the ends justify the means? Did my reasoning even justify the ends? I see you all this act, and I raise you the responsibility of thinking more about why you do everything that you do. Good things for bad reasons? Bad things for good reasons?” She had a flashback to how savage Rorke had been when he had found out Nikolai had been abusing her, “Just be conscious of your actions, and do more things,” She gestured for Rorke to stand up, “For the best reasons,” She put her hand to her chest and pulled it away slowly, bringing with it a dark green, almost black sphere. Rorke’s eyes went wide, like he’d heard she’d swam for him for the first time all over again, “You can muster.”
She grinned and handed him her Enderpearl.
The entire room erupted in fond applause, and as Jemma’s eyes sought her parents again, she saw smiles, and had the unasked question in her heart answered.
It was everything she ever dared hope for.
Epilogue
Jemma looked up at the decrepit guest house, then back at her co-graduate and mate. “Big project, huh, End Guardian Incumbent?” She used the title teasingly, shaking a hammer at him.
“Nothing the End Hero can’t handle!” He grinned back. Together they looked back at Jean, Kaine, and the half-dozen carpenters from Bollebog, and headed into the guest house to get started. First of course, they would have to assess the home’s guts, see what was able to be kept and what was worth keeping, then demolish what wasn’t, and THEN build onto what was.
It took them seven weeks to get it livable. The couple spent their first night in it one rainy day when it was turning spring into summer, and their last order of business was creating the perfect cage for Ender, and furnishing a guest room for anyone who deigned stay over. Like their parents. Like Opal. Like Headmistress Clark. Like enderman Ambassadors, passing through. They worked on restoring the ruins of the stronghold. Breaking into new sections, disabling traps, retrieving texts from libraries, treasures from chests. Making right what the wrong kinds of humans ruined.
And most important of all, they worked on beginning their new life together.
And maybe someday soon, with some more on the way? They could add a nursery to that to-do list…
#minecraft#enderman#endermen#minecraft fanfiction#fanfic#fanfiction#my writing#my fic#oc#minecraft oc
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𝒮𝓊𝑔𝒶𝓇 ℐ𝓃 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒟𝒶𝓇𝓀𝓃𝑒𝓈𝓈
Part 2/2
Interview with The Vampire
Submission: Submitted by sarcastic-sourwolf. Could you do a imagine where Lestat de Lioncourt falls in love with a y/n and they happen to be a spirit, they tell Lestat what they are and this ends up being a double love confession!♥️♥️♥️♥️thank you
Y/n L/n (Your name and last name), E/c (Eye color), H/c (Hair color), S/c (skin color)
Gaining a title by some victim lucky enough to survive the encounter. Y/n the Night Imminent. Taking a long walk through the quiet streets of the new world. Their e/c eyes scan every face searching for Lestat the Maker. Little luck in finding him…
Perhaps he had moved on from this place. Not finding whoever he sought. Maybe he did and planned on never seeing Y/n again. Yet in the many years spent together, The Lion never gave off that intent. It was sudden when they had the parting discussion.
Stopping a nearby carriage, hopping inside and just telling the driver to go whenever he wants. Y/n stares out the window. Recalling the last conversation the pair had, in that wonderful town house. The dusty red bricks, the worn oak roof… Fire crackling in the oven.
Lifting a smooth hand to their cheek, “I fear I must leave you now my Sweet.” tilting Y/n’s face to look into his icy eyes. Dread fills Lestat’s heart, leaving them seeming like an insane idea.
Blinking frankly to hide the salty tears, “Why? Was it something I did? L/n swallows. Nothing recently had occurred to spark such a reaction. Or so they thought.
“No.. You didn’t do anything wrong… You could never.” Lestat coos calmly, trying to comfort them in the fact it was his decision to go searching. See they were not gifted in reading minds like him… Perhaps it would make it easier to understand then.
Trying not to raise their voice, “Then why must you leave me now…” Y/n tries to get an explanation. The Lion is a very secretive person. It would be a miracle if he would explain now.
Shifting through the book of words collected in his mind, The Vampire finds something to say. “Because… I feel like there is another soul that needs my help. I can’t explain any more than that,” a short pause and licking of lips.
Their faces barely inches apart, “Please trust I will return and see you again.” the normal Aristocratic tone gone. Just a soft plea remains.
Y/n wraps a hand around their Maker’s wrist, “Lestat-. Please.” squeezing both eyes closed. They nevermore believed in crying over a man leaving them. But The Lion isn’t just a man, he is their Maker…
Two warm drops hit his cold flesh, “My Li-…” a Vampire can cry… But only once, maybe twice in all of eternity…
Taking a free digit to wipe away the tears, “Y/n… Have no fear. I bear you no ill will. I just have to see if I’m being paranoid.” Lestat takes the other hand to engulf theirs.
“Please don’t weep for me, my Sweet.” The blond vampire beseeches his creation, “It will only be a year or two. No more.” he swears on the heavens. The world would be burned if anything should happen to them.
Bringing his soft lips to Y/n’s forehead, “If you dare to travel, leave a trail to follow.” leaving a frail kiss on the cold skin. Clenching his eyes closed as well.
The steed snorts as the driver pulls up on the reigns. Coming to a stop. Wet mud slops beneath the wooden wheels and the animal’s hooves. Fertilizer wasps into their nostrils. It must be a plantation.
“We have arrived.” The driver speaks, jumping down to open the carriage door. Clicking the knob and pulling it outward. Lifting his free hand out to grasp.
“Thank you kind sir.” They grip the offered help down the two steps, before flipping a coin for the driver to catch. A whole gold coin. More than one would pay for a simple ride. The handler bows humbly, taking his cap off to show his messy black hair.
Glancing away from the forest to the large manor before them. A great white mansion stretches out in front of the many tall oak trees. The contrast is impressive to see with vampire eyes. Voices can be heard from inside. Almost an arguing tone.
“Why should I know these things! Do you know them?!” A strong booming voice yells toward another much quieter voice.
That voice. Lestat! Running toward the door within a second. A hand comes up to knock, hard enough to be heard throughout the home. A young chocolate skinned lady answers.
The girl’s sweet tone greets, “Are you here to see my Master Louis de Pointe du Lac?” smelling jasmine and some form of soap on her.
“If he isn’t busy.” Y/n bows.
“He is with one of his friends. I will tell them of your arrival-” She turns to retreat indoors, “What’s your name?” coming to a quick halt.
Y/n’s e/c orbs catch her hazelnut ones, “Thank you. Y/n L/n.” the maid shuffles farther inside only to stop once more.
“Oh please come in. Louis’ friend has mentioned you.” A light going off in both irises, the reaction as if she knew her through him. She carefully steps in, as the young lass closes the heavy door behind them.
Stepping a boot inside creates an echo on the marble flooring. Such a fine home. This… Louis de Pointe du Lac-. Must own this land.
Sliding off the fur lined coat. The young maid takes it over to hang with the other coats. One sticks out, Lestat’s blue velvet cloak. Leading the fellow Vampire up the magnificent stairwell. Gently tapping on the dining room door.
“Come.” The familiar Aristocratic voice answers with a sort of annoyance.
The maid chirps warily, “Another friend of yours is here.” her eyes flutter downward even with the wooden plank between them.
A different, much softer man speaks this time. “Who?”
Entering the next room, Lestat’s eyes beam upon seeing Y/n so blessed face. The young human next to them gestures to enter. Two men stand before L/n. One their Maker; Lestat de Lioncourt. The other a young man, tall, dark, handsome. Stunning green eyes.
Seems older than Lestat in the sense of his human form being more mature.
Arms wide open offering a hug, “My precious Y/n L/n. You may leave us now.” he dismisses the maid as she quietly closes the door once more.
Speeding over and picking them up in arm to a tight hug. Spinning for a moment till the young man clears his throat. Freezing and placing Y/n back on their two feet. He places a palm on their back to herd them over.
“Louis. This is my first creation. Y/n L/n de Paris." Lestat bows his head as Y/n does the same. In unison.
“Pleasure.” Y/n smiles brightly.
“No, pleasure is all mine. He never stops mentioning how much better of a student you are than me.” Louis explains as his voice lowers in shame, for being a failure in his eyes.
“Oh really, he hasn't told me so.” Their e/c eyes glare at Lestat surprised, whose face is one of someone caught.
“That's enough Louis. I never say such things.” His hand waves to go, “Do be so kind as to give us a moment.” the Elder finishes.
“Y/n… Why have you come. I’ve barely been gone.” “You have been gone long enough to warrant my appearance.”
“I tried to be patient but I felt as if you weren’t going to return.” “Don’t be foolish my dear, Why wouldn’t I?”
“You found someone worthy of your time and attention.” “It’s pretty easy for me to see why now-, that I have seen the lucky gentleman.”
“It isn’t what it looks like I promise, you should know the bond we share together.” “What if I don’t. You have never once said ‘I would do no such thing as to abandon you Y/n.’ Lestat.”
“How dare you speak as though I have no regard for you! Or your well being!”
“Consider me daring, oh great Lestat!” ”The nerve you have to speak to me this way!”
“What could you do to me, kill me?! If I cause the discomfort of my creator,- perhaps he should dispose of me like a piece of clothing.” Blood rages through the Maker’s viens like no anger before, nothing could stop him if he did in fact want Y/n to be gone from his life.
Yet a calm washes over this elder vampire, if any harm would come to them… He fears that the one involved would be plucked out of the world just as swiftly but not before taking time to make the killer repent. Without another pause to finish their rant, Lestat takes both hands to cup Y/n’s face. Kissing them with all the centuries pent up emotion. They tense at first, pushing both hands to his chest only to slowly drag their nails into the velvet fabric.
The Lion’s hands brush through the messy h/c locks… Deeping their moment. Y/n snakes an arm around his neck pulling him tighter yet. Sliding both palms down their sides and under L/n’s ass. He lifts them on top of the dining table and takes his rightful place between their knees.
The Creator breaks their kiss finally, pressing his forehead on theirs. Opening both icy irises to greet Y/n’s stunning e/c ones. Slow breathing fills the space between them. Enjoying the solace for the first time in ages, Lestat traces their jawline sweetly. Y/n wiggles their nose just as a rabbit would.
“Forgive me.” His soft and polished voice cuts through the silence, “Under one condition.” a smile breaks Y/n’s lips. Leaning back slightly to face him full. A playful mask slips away and is replaced seriously.
The Maker doesn’t pause, “Name it.” no question or hesitation.
The Vampire scoops both his hands into their own, “Don’t ever leave again. We are bound to each other's fates now.” lining up both palms. Locking eyes to create a form of vow. Unbreakable by either.
“Done.” The Blond responds, they embrace once more. Parting and straightening up each article of fabric on skin. Y/n helps redo his ponytail to smooth and tame the locks. The crazy curls are left alone only to be brushed behind both ears. He places a kiss on their forehead.
“You both make me proud to be your maker.” The Lion calls for his new pet to return, entering and closing the gate once again.
“It’s like with children Louis. The first born is always favored. Yet still I am gratified to be the creator for the both of you.” Taking one hand from each lover, the Maker gestures for them to sit.
“Only because they were first.” Y/n winks, being part of a bigger family made it easy to understand an unspoken rule of the oldest. Be the favorite.
Leaning over the table as if Lestat wasn't there, “Fear not Louis, don’t let his words bother you. We all have our own way of being night predators.” they laugh cheekily.
“No two are the same, I'm sure of it.” Louis agrees only to get an eye roll from the Blond. The pair giggle at the expression by their “parent”.
Pacing around the table majestically, “Both my children are teaming up against me. Whatever will I do.” The Elder huffs. Folding his arms behind his back.
“Louis de Pointe du Lac.” The Brown haired beauty states, giving a small bow. The h/c bows back, giving a hand to him.
“Y/n L/n. You can call me whatever you prefer.” A kiss is placed on their knuckles, “Pleasure is all mine.” an apple red would flush their cheeks if only they were alive.
“The French circus is in town and we could have some French cuisine?” Lestat’s voice shifts full of hunger and mischief. Changing glances to one then the other.
“I am starving.” Y/n chirps happily, standing up to stand beside him.
“You Louis?” Y/n holds out a hand to take, confused at the lack of enthusiasm.
A heavy sigh exhales, “He holds respect for life. He has been eating rats and chickens.” Lestat just looks down at him.
“You know that is futile. There aren’t enough animals with enough blood to satisfy us. Trust that I too held them in higher regard till the animals ran low.” An understanding glance is given as the explanation hits him. All that effort only to give him after a curtain point… Adds to his hate for choosing it.
Louis is defeated and joins them.
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1828 Wednesday 7 May
6 40/60
11 55/60
At 8 1/2 hair cut by young Parsons - breakfast at 9 3/4 - immediately came in Mrs. and Miss Belcombe - in deep mourning for Colonel Milne, and both much affected - Mrs. B- [Belcombe] obliged to go out and walk about in the garden for some minutes - then Miss B- [Belcombe] obliged to do ditto - the former kissed and received me as usual, and I was attentive to her, but gravely so - Mr. D- [Duffin] observed I did not speak - said I was attentively listening to Mrs. B-'s [Belcombe's] account of their arrival last night - Mrs. D- [Duffin] observed I ate no breakfast, nor did I take 1/2 my usual breakfast - would not take Miss B-'s [Belcombe's] hint to follow her mother into the garden nor did I follow Miss B- [Belcombe] no observations were made when they were gone - very soon after came Dr. H.S.B- [Henry Stephen Belcombe], and staid perhaps about 1/2 hour - He and I, as usual - says Jephson thinks everybody has a liver complaint, that is the worst of him - M-'s [Mariana Lawton's] liver is torpid - her present being not well caused mentally - Dr. H.S.B- [Henry Stephen Belcombe] hardly gone when Ald[?]n Kilby was announced - had taken the liberty of coming with the reverend Randolph Marriott who was in great distress to solicit something from Mr. Duffin! said if one was to attend to every such call...but ended I found (I slank off) by giving a sovreign -
Called on Mrs. Anne and Miss Gage - out - then sat about 20 minutes with Mrs. and Miss Yorke - might have sat longer but Captain and Mrs. Hincks came in - to go to the Yorkes' tomorrow evening - then went over the bridge with Mr. and Mrs. D- [Duffin] and returned to see Mr. D- [Duffin] and Miss S.G- [Sophia Greenup] mount to take a ride! then out with Mrs. D- [Duffin] met the Miss Cromptons - to see them tomorrow - left my card for Mrs. Willey - and for Mrs. and the 2 Miss Bests, looked about the improvements in and about the minster - left my card for the Miss Salmonds, now Mrs. and Miss, and saw their greenhouse then looked about near the Kearsleys they asked us in, and we sat a little while - the house the Salmonds lived in - should have been taken down and the new deanery erected on the site, but Mrs. K- [Kearsley] would not give up her lease of 7 years, only 1 of them expired now - the deanery is therefore close by, and the offices will in future stand where the house should have stood - then to the H- [Henry] Belcombes' - above 1/2 hour there - Mrs. H.S.B- [Henry Stephen Belcombe] wants me to go to her as soon as she has a spare bed - Mrs. D- [Duffin] observed afterwards, she fancied the 2 Mrs. B-s [Belcombes] did not always hit it well together - of course, I would neither know nor fancy so - Mrs. B- [Belcombe] still seeming to wish to seem on the same terms as formerly with me - took a good deal of notice of my little goddaughter - had her on my knee some time - called at Fisher's - not at home then sat some time with Mrs. Gilbert Crompton - made one or 2 shoppings, and got back at 5 20/60 -
Dinner at 5 3/4 - wrote the ends and sent off (at 9 1/4) my letter (begun on Sunday) to my aunt 'Place neuve de la Madeleine, No. [Number] 2, Paris' - mention the following Horner has just lost his daughter - wait a few days - will tell him to send the teeth to Hammersley to be forwarded - must stay till 1 August to execute the deed of sale of the land for the new church - Northgate let 8 years at £84. George Robinson to have a building of 3 stories and 6 rooms estate £150 - shall be glad to be off for £200 - Filling up the square of the Stag's head house and building barn for Hopkin must wait - my father consents to turn the Cunnery into a farm - Washington's estate £400 - should be glad to be off for £500 - to get water for the house at Shibden from a fresh source - Cunnery plantation valued at £70 - replanting with oaks about £50 - getting down the pit hill about £20, or upwards, that the value of the wood will hardly suffice - worst thing, the road to branch off from Mitholm and go just behind or just in front of Lower brea into the new Northowram road - all the coal pulled at willy-hill pit (on account of the turnpike bar set in Godley lane) by which we lose about £30 an acre - all the roads thrown upon the towns - Southowram wants to lead stones down Pump lane, and also down Bairstow - no preventing it - my father and Marian gone yesterday to Market W- [Weighton] on account of the sale there of some of the canal shares - my father would have us come to England - 'climate appears to him a mere nothing' we might do very well at Shibden if we liked - I said the difficulties were greater than he imagined - He will sell the Hampstead if he can get 7 or 6 hundred pounds for it - had thought of selling it without even letting us know, because (he said to Marian) our hands were full enough already - said I would not give £600, and should be glad enough if he could get that price; for the 1/4 of it would be very useful - Mark Hepworth ill - called on Mrs. Kenny and Mrs. Wilcock - Mrs. K [Kenny] delighted with her letter and the porte alumette - her rent for the house E.R- [Eliza Raine] had in Savile row £27 per annum called at the vicarage - 'he is pleasant and gentlemanly enough and she a quiet sort of person who has evidently seen very little of the world' - do not think quite like my father about the tithes - Mr. Eden's money to be paid in October, and got at 4 3/4 p.c. [percent] from a trust - 'She would like to buy the manor' of Market W- [Weighton] thinks the d. [duke] of D- [Devonshire] may sell it, and his property there in the course of some time - It seems they do not clear 'more than £50 a year by the Skelfler Estate' - Marian's illness was typhus fever and infectious so that all were obliged to drink port wine and live well to avoid it -
Thomas brought back my letter - too late - Mr. D- [Duffin] and Miss Sophia Greenup gone to a small party at Mrs. Saltmarshes - Mrs. D- [Duffin] and I had tea at 9 1/4, and afterwards sat talking - she says they have fifteen hundred a year but he seems to give about three hundred a year to his family at his death a hundred a year to each of his two sisters and four nieces for life and in default of issue to revert to his nephews and their issue and in default of that to go his godson and great nephew William Duffin Oxley absolutely and forever the two nephews to have nothing during Mrs Ds [Duffins] life but at her death to share equally her jointure of seven hundred a year her own two hundred and fifty settled upon her brother and his family and the thousand she got lately she will give to Sophia G [Greenup] - a drop or 2 of rain before breakfast - afterwards dullish, but fine day -
Reference: SH:7/ML/E/10/0156 - SH:7/ML/E/10/0157
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1828 Dec., Tues. 30
5 40/60
11 20/60
Some time talking to Jno [John] etc. Goodish motion as of late yesterday and the day before. Another motion loose and largeish as if after a dose. Take treacle to my pudding every day –
At my desk at 7 35/60 – wrote the following note to “John Rawson Esquire, Ash grove, Elland” (and sent it to the post by Jno [John] a little before 9)
“Dear Sir – I hear you are thinning your woods of some very nice young beeches and sycamores – I want about eight of each to plant out as single trees, and, if you can spare me so many, shall be very much obliged to you – I can send a couple of men and the cart any day you may have the goodness to name – I beg my compliments to Mrs. Rawson, and am, dear sir, very truly yours Anne Lister, Shibden Hall Tuesday 30 December 1828” –
Breakfast at 7 55/60 in about 20 minutes – On considering over what William K– [Keighley] told me yesterday made the marginal observations and references on the margin of yesterday – William K– [Keighley] said Thomas G– [Greenwood] was losing by his hard wood (meaning oaks, sycamores, ashes, beeches, and suchlike) but gained by his mahogany and cabinet making –
His better stick to what he understood – Not right to sell his wood at such a price as 15 1/2 d [pence] a foot – 6d [pence] for grower and everybody theirs to undersell, and lower prices – Must have lost by it – It was sold before he had got it away from here – The common price a pair of cart shafts oak 10/6 ash 9/. [shillings]
Greenwood sells the latter at 7 /. [shillings] a pair – Many a man will not deal with him – If this widow woman’s husband had been living, he would have had nothing to do with him – When Greewood came for the wood, and I told him the other lot was about￡5, he said that was much higher valued then the other – There ought to be above 100 foot of wood for that price. Should not be more than 14d [pence] a foot – I suppose he calculated to make 1 1/2 per foot – William K– [Keighley] says he ought to have 5 percent for his money – and 1/2d [pence] a foot would do –
Wrote the above of today – Then at my accents till 10 1/4 – William K– [Keighley] yesterday calculated the alder at the fish pond 5 feet at 13d [pence] = 5/5. 2 grained sycamore in hall lane 13 feet and 12 feet at 1/6 = 1.17.6 sycamore bottom of calf croft also 2 grained 6 feet and 5 1/2 feet at 15d [pence] = 13/9. Sycamore Well Royde fence between Ing and Brow, 5 feet at 15d [pence] = 6/3 Elm in a same hedge row 2 feet at 1/6 = 3/. [shillings] –
Again looking over my accounts till 10 3/4 – Went out at 11, down to Mosey and his man taking up the railing in Charles Howarth’s field along the top of Lower Brook Ing wood and setting it 4 feet farther from the holly hedge – Ordered the about 9 yards of hedge cut down yesterday by William Keighley junior in mistake at the top of Lower brea wood and bottom of Well Royde crow to be double railed this afternoon and Mosey and his companion did it –
The pruning and young oaks in Hall wood till 1, and then went to Throp and the 2 wallers planting in the Cunnery plantation – Sauntered about there and in the upper fields during the 55 minutes the men were at dinner – Went down about 2 3/4 and sent Jno [John] up with more oaks – Throp had then planted near 300 today – Except this Jno [John] did nothing for me today – William finish the little bit of clearing of the plantation that remained to be done –
Then went along the walk and cut across the fields to Well Royde – Sauntered about there, then, went along the Northowram road to the end of it beyond Quarry house – Admire this road the view etc. and returned by Wellroyde –
Had just got into Lower brook Ing at 4 1/2 when Jno [John] met me to say Mr. Waterhouse was coming – Hurried home – Sat 10 minutes in the little breakfast room – At 4 50/60 went up to dress came down at 5 1/4 – and sat talking – They drank tea and I had my dinner at the same time in the drawing room. Mr. W– [Waterhouse] gave me the account of the canal tonnage and of the stock and dividends – The cut up to H–x [Halifax] cost ￡600000 – Wont pay more than now (nine percent had yearly) these 7 or 10 years – Shares now worth 100 guineas percent ∴ [therefore] pays 3 1/2 percent on the investment – Mr. W– [Waterhouse] went away at 8 20/60 –
Went upstairs for near 1/2 hour – Then came down – Sat talking – Wrote out from my father the contents in day works of the different fields my father occupies – Wrote the last 13 lines – Very fine mildish day – Went upstairs at 10 25/60
A striking proof of how very little influence I have with Marian occurred this evening – I have repeatedly observed that all the jesuitical party and all the knowing ones among the Roman Catholic priesthood feared nothing so much as emancipation – Hated Canning because he was for it – Looked up to Wellington as their champion against it – No impression made on Marian –
Mr. Waterhouse happened casually to say this evening that his brother said all the well informed of the Roman Catholic clergy in Portugal dreaded nothing so much as emancipation and bringing the Roman Catholics more in contact with the protestants – I saw Marian was struck by this observation – I have just named it to her – She seems already more than 1/2 converted –
Well! Said I, how often have I made similar observations in vain – You will come round at last – but I must not convert you – Oh! no said Marian you will never be to blame – True – I know none with whom my influence in all matters of opinion is so small as with my own and only sister –
Wrote the last 8 lines and had just done at 10 40/60 at which hour Fahrenheit in my room (52º and the wind very calm earlier in the evening) highish – Mr. W– [Waterhouse] mentioned Todd’s the great ready monday haberdasher’s shop in the city – 70 or 80 shopsmen –
[sideways in margin] Speaking of the manor of Southowram, mentioned the circus of the waste near Joseph Hall’s said I had asked Mr. R– [Rawson] if he was tired of the manor, and he had answered it was worth ￡3000 to one – He gave ￡1000 for it – Mr. W– [Waterhouse] agreed he could not do better than take the same money for it again – I said if he let me consider too long I might change my mind, but I was a thousand for it now –
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Monday, 1 December 1828
5 50/60
11 10/60
From 6 3/4 to 8 3/4 setting my pirouette Daybook and Cashbook and sealed and gave Cordingley for the post when John goes this morning to see if Mr Robinson be come my letter to ‘Miss Maclean of Coll ‘Honorable lady Stuart’,Whitehall, London’. – John took it at 9 – Looking into Hoppus’s measurer – Breeakfast at 91/4 with my father – staid down talking to him, and did not come upstairs till 10 3/4 – had been raining for 3/4 hour before or should have been gone out – then went downstiars again for Marian to mend my old pelisse a little – and staid while she turned up the hem of the white petticoat I had on – got measuring tape 2 roods or 42 feet long – fair at 11 3/4 and came upstairs – went almost immediately into the library for Hederic’s great lexicon and staid there reading 1 thing or other above an hour – then came to my own room and reading Turner’s Italian grammar till after 2 –
went out at 2 1/4 – to the Cunnery plantation and stood there all the time and did not come in till 5 1/4 –Throp and the 2 wallers planting – finished tonight putting in 2100 oaks – James Smith off till after William Green leading away brash in the morning but preparing for brewing tomorrow this afternoon, and hardly got 2 loads away in the morning – John backwards and forwards at Halifax in the morning – clearing away this afternoon – James does little or nothing when I am not there – must break off tomorrow – John to go tomorrow morning for more trees to William Keighley – Throp’s not come yet – (Mosey and his man sawing up railing) – Mr Robinson had arrived just before I came in at 5 1/2 –
Dressed – dinner at 6 5/60 in the little breakfast room by myself – my father and sister and Mr R– (Robinson) in the drawing room – sat reading from page 332 to 392 Thompson’s Travels and adventures in South Africa – what I read was his account of the settlement of the English colony there, in Albany – his account interesting enough – But people should not emigrate for comfort’s sake – went into the drawing room at 8 20/60 and staid till they went to supper – spent a stupid hour – a restraint upon myself and everybody else, then came up to my room – the title of the Skelfler freehold made good – the Copyhold a good holding title, but not a selling title – Strongly recommend its being made a selling title – the debt too heavy – spoke as if I thought it not likely to be lessened and however determined my sister might be at present not to sell, she might change her mind – better have the power to sell, cost what it would – there is a mistake in the admittance Weighton put for Skipton or vice versa, but if Mr Carr the steward rectifies this, still he must certify that Mr Buttle could not be tenant for life by courtesy and custom of the manor, as he put himself in to be – for if he was really tenant for life (Mr R– (Robinson) denies that he was or could be so) then the recovery suffered by Mrs Appleton on exchanging and selling to my father for £1900 and upwards was not good – she could not suffer a recovery in her father’s life time, and, in this case, the 1/2 of the copyhold (my mother and Mrs A– (Appleton) joint heiresses) in Mrs Inman’s – but then a bill must be filed in Chancery shewing that my father paid this above valuable consideration and Mrs I– (Inman) would have to make my father’s title good – Marshall (who pays £184.10.0 per annum) if he does not pay better had better give up – He is the only one who cannot pay – Myers (who pays about £210 per annum) is a good tenant, and pays very punctually – estimate let at about £616 per annum – I see from Squibb’s particulars the outgoings paid by my father are £15.16.2 1/4 It was then let at 752.5.0 per annum and Wednesday 31 July that year (1822) my father gave me the reduced rents amounting to £653.15.0 per annum – and now Marian says it is about £616. per annum and Mr R– (Robinson) says times are such for farmers it is not cheap let tho’ not dear – does not seem to think it will bear an advance – this making out title and changing mortgage may be done says Mr R– (Robinson) – for not much more than £100 – supposed £200 – Mr R– (Robinson) as steward has £20 per annum – with repairs and 1 thing or another (to say nothing of title deed and mortgage expected) my father does not clear £50 per annum by this estimate – Yet I do not think Marian quite liked the manner in which I spoke of the debt being too great, and the little likelihood of lessening it – Mr R– (Robinson) said one thousand of the seven thousand now borrowed was fixed on the copyhold to be cleared off the 1st. opportunity – after all there are 218.2.37 acres roods perches at the will of the lord and tho’ the last admittance fines paid 28 years ago (dating from 1822) were only £22.1.6 (vide Squibb’s particulars) that is no reason why they should not be more in time to come – will they be less than (27 years rents an inheritance) £218? – 218.2.37 copyhold at the will of the lord – 178.3.37 copyhold fine certain at 5/6 1/2 – 322.2.16 (more or less) freehold – well for me, I have nothing to do with it –
wrote all but the 1st. 8 lines of today which took me till 10 20/60 – Showery morning – raining a little at 2 1/4 p.m. but almost immediately fair, and fair the rest of the afternoon and evening – now that I am away, I hear my father talking below at a fine rate – and a laugh now and then and all are much better without me – Mr R– Robinson a very honest worthy man, no doubt – but a vulgar East Riding attorney; and I am little at my ease when downstairs with them – John Booth paid Throp’s bill this morning, and ordered 1000 more oaks of William Keighley Throp’s not being yet arrived from Beverley –
(SH:7/ML/E/11/0101)
https://www.catalogue.wyjs.org.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=CC00001%2f7%2f9%2f6%2f11%2f101&pos=1
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Garage Door Installation
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The Daughters of Ghostwood Plantation Lewis Barrett Lehrman
Ghostwood Plantation has been on my mind for a long time now. The classic plantation houses of the Old South have always attracted me, as tangible ghosts of a long dead era. Many of them still stand, of course, and some are still occupied by the living. Others are haunted by their histories, their tragic destinies, and their lonely and neglected existence... not to mention the spirits of that bygone era.
The title shown above was suggested by Robert P., in my "Name The Painting" contest that month
The winning story that follows was submitted by Alabama resident Ella R.
"Few living souls dare tempt the spirits of Ghostwood Plantation, where ancient oaks stand guard over its once-proud manor house. On nights when the shrouded moon floats low and full, a vagrant breeze carries perfume of earth and damp leaves, with just a hint of magnolia, whispering forgotten secrets through swaying curtains of Spanish moss.
"In high-ceilinged chambers and moldering shacks that once knew pride, misery, passion, pain, the moon spills silent silver through gaping windows, upon memory-strewn floors, and only the ghostly daughters of Ghostwood Plantation remain to recount their silent stories in the indigo shadows.
"Hush! Wait! Is that merely the mournful call of a distant loon?"
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Chinsegut Bloggers Retreat March 15-16, 2019
Sharing History & Making Magic at our Brooksville Bloggers Retreat
What better way to get to comfortable with fellow bloggers than around a campfire? Pexels / Pixabay
Have you ever visited a place and felt its magic?
Do you love Antebellum homes, hill top views, period furniture and rocking chairs on a grand porch?
Do you believe in the power of blogging and social media influencing to raise awareness and help people connect with places?
Want to use your powers of communication to help a nonprofit organization get known?
Come to the first Chinsegut Bloggers Retreat at the Chinsegut Hill Manor Museum and Retreat Center in Brooksville, Florida for a great event, designed to connect you to fellow communicators and show the world what electronic communications can do!
An enchanting view of the Chinsegut Manor House through the azaleas.
Be a part of the 1st Chinsegut Bloggers Retreat March 15-16, 2019!
In a fun-filled 22 hours, you can discover the amazing story of a place that Seminole Indians first settled. Later, the Chinsegut Manor Museum was the headquarters of a large and profitable plantation. The giant cedar and cypress trees harvested by one owner were worth nearly double what they paid for the property!
Photographs, letters, archaeological finds and more are in the Chinsegut Manor Museum on the Hill. Image by Diane Bedard.
The last private owners of this beautiful and historic property added electric and plumbing, entertained the rich and powerful, and helped to sway America toward social justice and equality for all.
Stand where slaves were set free... and where some of the same people and their children were told that they would have a home for the rest of their lives, even though the government had threatened to take the property for taxes!
The view from Chinsegut Hill is magnificent. The nearly 300 foot elevation lets you see for miles and miles. Image by Diane Bedard
Learn about the lives that were intertwined with this beautiful property once called "Mount Airy" by its owner for its magnificent views and perpetual breezes. Learn how our nation was influenced by the property's last private owners. See the graves of children who were born on "The Hill" and died here.
Chinsegut is an Inuit Indian word for "spirit of things lost that are now found." Feel the spirit and...
USF built seven "cabins" and held retreats and conferences at Chinsegut during the 1970s and 1980s. Image courtesy of Visit Florida
We are going to eat like Presidents
Carla Richards of Heavenly Endeavors Catering serves the best fresh food with a smile at the Chinsegut Bloggers Retreat! Image by Diane Bedard
Friday evening's meal will be prepared by Carla and Rickie Robinson of Heavenly Endeavors Catering. Carla has cooked for George Steinbrenner and President George W. Bush. Her husband Rickie is an Executive Chef and Master Pastry Chef. Together they create meals that please the palate with fresh ingredients and tasty fresh herbs and spices.
Chicken or Fish? Fresh, pan seared and topped - not drowned - with freshly prepared sauces, vegetables and the perfect side. Image by Diane Bedard
Friday night's meal will include a choice of pan-seared chicken breast with a basil wine sauce and a exotic slaw, or fresh fish in season, seared in butter and olive oil with a lemon wine sauce served on herb couscous with steamed fresh vegetables.
Sunday morning we will have a omelet station with more details to come...
Retreat Registration and Meal Selection
Shared Room with Pan-seared chicken breast with basil wine sauce $50.00 USD
Shared Room with Pan-seared Fresh fish with lemon wine sauce $50.00 USD
Private Room with Pan-seared chicken breast w/ basil wine sauce $75.00 USD
Private Room with Pan-seared Fresh fish with lemon wine sauce $75.00 USD
Tell the stories to your readers and followers...
We will tour the historic Manor Museum, stay on-site in the Chinsegut cabins, built in the 1970s by University of South Florida for retreats, enjoy catered dinner together in the dining hall, and tour the adjacent Chinsegut Conservation Center, the only Education center run by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, where we take a guided night hike and learn to identify animals at night.
RestaurantAnticaRoma / Pixabay
Relax and Network with fellow Communicators, too
Friday night we will have a bonfire, weather permitting, to relax and enjoy the fresh air, stars and moon, and each other.
We will have a guided night tour at the Chinsegut Conservation Education Area. Image by Diane Bedard
Saturday will start with another catered meal in the dining hall and walking the grounds to see the Civilian Conservation Corps buildings and the Altar Oak.
We will learn about the USDA's Agricultural Station, now run by Florida A & M, and how they are using the property to educate farmers of tomorrow.
Then some time for research in the Museum's research room, networking, relaxing on the porch and check out at noon.
Let's get together to get this amazing place known!
#ThinkChinsegut will be our hashtag - and we utilize our craft of communicating what a special place this is.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Retreat Registration and Meal Selection
Shared Room with Pan-seared chicken breast with basil wine sauce $50.00 USD
Shared Room with Pan-seared Fresh fish with lemon wine sauce $50.00 USD
Private Room with Pan-seared chicken breast w/ basil wine sauce $75.00 USD
Private Room with Pan-seared Fresh fish with lemon wine sauce $75.00 USD
Friday Itinerary (All tours/activities are optional, but included in the Registration Fee)
Arrive and check in 2 pm Friday (bring your own snacks, drinks and camp chair)
3 - 5pm Tour the house with Margaret Drier Robins, leader of social justice reform and women’s suffrage in the early 1900’s as your guide, alternating with a grand porch reception/networking
5 pm Dinner with Raymond Robins, advisor to seven U.S. Presidents, preacher and champion of social justice
6:30 pm Evening- guided night walk at Chinsegut Wildlife Environmental Area leaving from the Chinsegut Conservation Center
9 pm Bonfire and stargazing amidst the Chinsegut Cabins, providing weather cooperates. (If it's windy/rainy, we will have games and networking in the dining hall)
The sign on the building reads, Wash House, CCC, 1933. Image by Diane Bedard
Saturday Morning Itinerary (All tours/activities are optional, but included in the Registration Fee)
8:00 am Breakfast in the dining hall with Elizabeth Robins, esteemed actress, author, and fearless suffragette in England and the U.S.
9:00 am Walk the grounds – see the CCC buildings and the oaks, enjoy the gardens.
10:00 am Learn about Florida A & M and their work with the Agricultural Station, formerly part of the Chinsegut property
11:30 am Visit the Research Room of the Manor Museum or relax on the grounds.
Noon Check out and venture to other adventures on Florida’s Adventure Coast.
Please note: The Chinsegut Retreat Center Cabins have four bedrooms per cabin, with two twin beds and a private bathroom in each bedroom. You are welcome to bring a guest to the Blogathon so you know your room mate - or plan to meet a new friend!
Free-Photos / Pixabay
Make your Reservation NOW!
Only 50 places available.
Retreat Registration and Meal Selection
Shared Room with Pan-seared chicken breast with basil wine sauce $50.00 USD
Shared Room with Pan-seared Fresh fish with lemon wine sauce $50.00 USD
Private Room with Pan-seared chicken breast w/ basil wine sauce $75.00 USD
Private Room with Pan-seared Fresh fish with lemon wine sauce $75.00 USD
Chinsegut Bloggers Retreat FAQs
Q: I want to bring a guest that doesn't write or blog. Is that ok?
A: Yes, as long as they are accompanied by a blogger, social media influencer or communications professional. Just register them also.
Q: I am not comfortable sharing a room with a stranger. Are private rooms available?
A: Although the idea of getting to know each other through this retreat includes shared rooms, we understand it can be uncomfortable to bunk with unknown people, even if they are in the same profession. If you can't bring a friend to the Chinsegut Bloggers Retreat, request a room to yourself for an additional $25 fee. You can to get your guaranteed private room.
Q: I would like to attend part of the event, but not all of it. Is that ok?
A: Of course, just Email Diane and we'll get things worked out!
Q: I would like to join the Bloggers Retreat, but I'm not much into history or walking around. Can I skip the tours but enjoy the food and place?
A: Of course! If you just want to sit on the porch or write in your cabin, it's just fine. Come on out and enjoy the camaraderie without the educational parts.
Retreat Registration and Meal Selection
Shared Room with Pan-seared chicken breast with basil wine sauce $50.00 USD
Shared Room with Pan-seared Fresh fish with lemon wine sauce $50.00 USD
Private Room with Pan-seared chicken breast w/ basil wine sauce $75.00 USD
Private Room with Pan-seared Fresh fish with lemon wine sauce $75.00 USD
Questions about the Event? Email Diane and we'll get things worked out!
Read the full article
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Huxley Estate (Huxley Manor) | Oak Ridge, North Carolina | Headcanon
Huxley Manor was established by Thomas J. Rutledge Sr., who migrated into the Piedmont region of North Carolina in 1763. It began as a Plantation that produced roughly twenty-five-percent of the family’s income until Edward J. Rutledge incorporated the Rutledge Trilateral Commission in 1868. In 1870, the Family altered the Estate's name to Welbeck, yet reverted to the original name (Huxley) in 1946.
Huxley Estate spans approximately forty-one thousand (41,000) acres in Oak Ridge, along Carolina's northwestern frontier. Oblong-shaped, the Manor rests in the center, spanning ninety-eight thousand (98,000) sq. feet in length and one-hundred-thirty thousand (130,000) sq. feet in width. Five-hundred acre lots directly surrounding the Manor brim with manicured lawns replete with oak, red maple, and sweetgum trees. Prior to the abolition of involuntary servitude in 1865 the foregrounds held the second-largest Tobacco farm (11,000 acres) in the Rutledge Circle and two six-thousand (6,000) acre farms for rice and indigo. The farms were maintained in the decades following the Civil War through a tenuous sharecrop agreement struck under the leadership of Thomas J. Rutledge V in 1871. The agreement was unsuitable and costly, resulting in its nullification in 1904. In 1917, Pendleton J. Rutledge Sr. sold eleven-thousand (11,000 acres) of the Estate to the State of North Carolina for twelve-point-eight million dollars. He commissioned the architect, Alvin L. Flagler, to redesign the foregrounds - the Tobacco, rice, and indigo farms were demarcated by wood fencing and separated from the Main Groundspace by a man-made pond that ends along the road leading to the Manor. In this visage the Estate remained until the late twentieth century, as a reflection of the Gilded Age.
Washington H. Rutledge Sr., in 1910, invested seven-million dollars into Huxley Manor’s restoration. The Manor stood at the heart of the Estate since its Founding in 1763, and by 1910 its under-structure began to crumble. Washington commissioned the esteemed architect, Sir Raleigh Woolton, for the Manor’s reconstruction. In the Antebellum model it was completed on July 17th, 1912.
Malcolm H. Rutledge Jr., upon taking the helm of the Family’s principal holding(s) in 1977, re-appropriated much of the foremost Grounds to the construction of grandiose fountains. Malcolm had a statue of his forefather, Thomas J. Rutledge Sr., erected at the heart of the Estate under which was embossed his infamous maxim, “Unite or die.” In addition, Malcolm H. Jr. had a pool and accompanying pool-house constructed in 1990, followed by a tennis court, eight-hole golf court, and two-bedroom guest-cottage in the rear grounds space. Intact, however, is the scaffold by which Thomas J. Rutledge Sr. fashioned the Plantation during the Golden Years of the Antebellum South. There, it would remain, as a chapel of Rutledge History.
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Madewood Plantation House
Built in 1840-48, Madewood Plantation House reflects the aspirations of its original owner, Colonel Thomas Pugh, a member of a prominent and wealthy Louisiana family. Madewood represents one of the finest and purest examples of the Greek Revival style architecture in a plantation home. In a grove of oaks and magnolias, facing Bayou Lafourche, Pugh and his architect, Henry Howard, constructed a house whose classical splendor would surpass that of the neighboring plantations. Madewood was the manor house for the group of plantations that Pugh acquired in the 1830s and 40s, which eventually totaled some 10,000 acres. Sugar cane production brought economic prosperity to the area around Bayou Lafourche in the first part of the 19th century. While Madewood is one of many plantations along the bayou, it stands out for its architectural grandeur, which is unique in its blending of its Classical features with indigenous material. The grounds today include the main house and attached kitchen, and in the rear, the carriage house, the Pugh family cemetery, Elmfield Cottage and the Madewood slave quarters.
The house is built of bricks made on the plantation, while the exterior is covered with stucco, scored to represent masonry blocks and painted white. The proportions are carefully determined, the six fluted Ionic columns rise two stories, with the central portion retaining the character of a Greek temple. Two one-story wings, echoing the predominant elements of the main house, complete the facade. The interior contains 23 rooms, with floors of heart pine, doorframes and moldings of cypress, painted to resemble oak (or faux bois). Each doorway is signed by the artist, Cornealieus Hennessey. Elsewhere, the woodwork, including the cypress mantelpieces, has been painted to resemble marble or exotic woods. The Harold Marshall family purchased the property in 1964 and undertook a major restoration of the home, which was completed in 1978. The property is now owned by their sons, but is open to the public daily and is the center for an annual arts festival and other cultural events.
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Conversation
His voice had never sounded so quiet, echoing loudly throughout the idyllic landscape that he found himself standing in. He took it all in. It was a sunny day, the sky bright blue, light streaming through the trees. A neatly-kept dirt road meandered up a hill, and atop the hill, a plantation manor.
“Hello,” Gabe sounded. He earned no response except a gentle breeze caressing his cheek and the tinkling of wind chimes from the house ahead of him. Looking back, the road kept going through an everlasting apple orchard. Gabe snapped his attention back to the home as the wind carried the subtle tones of someone humming.
The walk to the house was short and felt like forever. With every step, Gabe looked around. One tree sounded like robins, another like cardinals, occasionally disturbed by shrill cries of blue jays. Gabe thought, for a moment, that he stood in paradise.
At the base of the steps that led up to the polished oak slats of the porch, he called out again. “Hello there, I say! Is there anyone at home? That’s a mighty fine tune I hear you hummin’.” The front door swung open.
Gabe could see through. Inside was a pristine residence, decorated in a strange mix of modesty and opulence. At the far end was a doorway that led to another porch. Humming drifted through, its tune akin to songs that had been sung by the congregation of Coldwater Creek.
Stepping inside, he saw rooms devoid of occupants, the only sound greeting him being the sound that boots make on hardwood floors. The humming kept on. Gabe turned an ear towards it as he stepped outside to the other porch.
Gabe froze. To his right were a handful of rocking chairs, and to his left, the same, save for the strange man humming some old hymn. He had never before seen such a familiar-looking stranger. The man glanced at Gabe, then back to the panorama that the porch overlooked.
“Hello there, Mister Fletcher,” said the man. The chair creaked as he gently rocked to and fro. “That's not necessarily who you are anymore, though. I suppose you always were Gabriel Prior from the beginning. Please, sit with me a spell.”
He gestured to the chair to the right of him, a small table between. Ice tinkled in the glass he held as it raised to his lips for a sip. Gabe took a step or two forward, stopped, but finally joined the man with an inaudible sigh of relief.
“You’ll have to pardon me, sir, but I'm not sure we've met. Your accent does ring a bell, though. Tennessee? Carolina perhaps? All the same, you have me at a disadvantage. You know me by name, but leave me guessin’ as to whom is my host.”
The man turned with warm eyes and a sly smile. “You know who I am, Gabe. And you know where I'm from. You just don't want to admit it. Lemonade?”
It was all Gabe could do to keep from laughing out loud at the glass and pitcher on the table he was certain was bare mere moments ago. In turn, he simply shut his eyes, returned the man's grin, and nodded. “So, is there any particular reason we're having this little chat?”
The stranger stroked his salt-and-pepper beard and ran his hand through his graying hair. “Well, to answer some questions I'm sure you have. Let's start with the one gnawing at you the most, then?”
Gabe took a sip from his glass. “Ok then, why me?”
The man gazed out at the view. “Why not?”
“Then apparently you do not know me as well as you make out,” Gabe returned with a chuckle.
“I know you better than yourself, Mister Prior. It is no mistake that I call you forth,” the man stated. His countenance no longer bore the mirth from before.
“I'm not who you need. I've done too many bad things to good, innocent people. I've killed men in my time.”
“And David got a married woman with child and sent her husband off to die in battle. Sampson took the jawbone of an ass and killed a thousand. I still called upon them. I still loved them. I still needed them. Just like I need you. Does that assuage your anxieties?”
“And the lies?”
“Was it a lie when you saved the Riddle boy? Was it a lie when you stopped a gang of outlaws from burning down the town? Or when you saved the entire population of Coldwater from helping each other to death?”
Gabe trembled. “What about Rose?”
“If you fear she will leave your side, I say have more faith in her than that. She's been with you through very tough times. I foresee her being with you through many more. As for her...dealings? I know her fate, but I cannot say.”
Gabe's chest heaved ponderously as his breath loudly escaped him.
“You know, though, she'd make a pretty good wife. If you ask me, that is.” The man's smile reappeared. Gabe joined in, taking another drink of his lemonade.
The man took one last drink of his own and set the glass aside, ice clinking as it settled on the table. “Gabriel Prior, I'm afraid our palaver must come to a close, but allow me to leave you with these words,” he intoned.
The rocking chair in which he sat suddenly seemed heavy and thronelike. His sight stretched far to the horizon and the sun which slowly began to sink below it. And thus, he spoke.
“You've seen dark times, and you've endured no matter how bad things were. But they're going to get worse, Gabe. Much worse. Coldwater was just the beginning. Do not forget that I am here. I will be watching. And bear in mind I do work in mysterious ways. Rely on your friends, they will support you, but remember where you come from and let it guide your heart and mind. I'm only as close to you as you are to me.”
The breeze passed in peaceful silence. The sky burned with the colors of sunset. Gabe watched, uttering not a sound.
The stranger smiled wide. “Did you ever see such a beautiful sight?”
Did you ever see such a beautiful sight?
Gabe's eyes flickered open to the fleeting memory of a fatherly man's soothing southern drawl that was quickly replaced with the hustle and bustle of the busy streets of Denver below. He looked up and met the gaze of the gleaming eyes of Rosaleen Byrne.
“Somethin’ wrong?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Not really. Just the soundest you've slept since, well, before Coldwater Creek. Almost started to worry you wouldn't wake up. Almost.”
He took one of her hands into his, admiring the sonorous Irish lilt her voice carried anytime she was genuinely concerned for him. “How long was I out?”
“Nearly eight hours.”
Gabe gawked at her. “Well I'll be damned,” he said as he sat up in bed. “Where's Bogue and Melton?”
“Out. James said he was off to find a general store to pick up supplies for us, but I wager he's looking for that Meeker fella. Howell went along to 'keep James out of trouble’ or so he said.”
“Sounds like two men lookin’ for a fight.”
“Exactly.”
Gabe looked awkwardly around the room. “I swear I think I had a dream.”
“A dream? What about?”
“I don't rightly recall now. But I think it was a good one. I might be wrong, but for now, I feel like things are gonna be alright.”
The horses of James Bogue and Howell Melton slowly bore their riders back into town along with a pall of disappointment that clung to them like a morning fog. As they made their way towards the livery that sat closest to the hotel they all chose as their new home, Howell peered to the mountains they sat beneath, and the dark gray clouds that tumbled over them.
“Storm’s coming.”
Bogue didn't bother to look.
“Yep.”
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South Carolina’s Most Expensive Home Just Had Its Price Cut by 30%
realtor.com
Even with a recent price cut from $25 million to $17.5 million, the historic 2,510-acre Twickenham plantation near Yemassee is still the most expensive home in South Carolina.
The huge property near Interstate Highway 95 dates to the 1730s and has been featured in Southern Living magazine.
Initially listed in October 2018, the property had its price cut by 30% on Jan. 9.
“The owner just said, ‘let’s drop the price and see if we can get it sold,’” says listing agent CJ Brown. “He owns a lot of different properties around the country, and they’re spending more time at some of the other properties right now.”
The land was once a rice plantation and has more than a mile of frontage on the Combahee River in the ACE Basin in coastal South Carolina. In addition to a manor home, there are two historic guesthouses, a horse barn, stables, and storage barns.
Barns and stables
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Interior
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It’s centrally located as well—about 20 minutes from Beaufort, SC, 50 minutes from Charleston, SC, and an hour from Savannah, GA.
“When you’re on the plantation, it feels like you’re a million miles from everywhere, but you’re pretty close to the best of everything,” says Brown.
The plantation dates to 1732, when King George II of England created a grant for the property, and Walter Izard assembled the property in 1733.
“It feels like you step back into an earlier time when you enter the property,” Brown explains. “The live oaks are massive with the canopy around the house, and it just feels like you’re stepping back in the 1700s. You almost expect to see a wagon. It’s like you’re going back into a time machine and into a snapshot of what life was like back then.”
The main plantation house was built by Maj. John Screven in 1878 in a two-story, Federal style. It has four bedrooms and 3.5 baths. While maintaining the home’s history and period-appropriate furnishings, the current owners put the place through an extensive remodel, which was completed in 2018.
Tree canopy
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Kitchen
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Guesthouse
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There’s now a chef’s kitchen with high-end appliances, modern bathrooms, and expansive living spaces.
Many of the rooms overlook gardens designed by Robert Marvin and Douglas Duany, landscape architects who did work at Augusta National Golf Club and Sea Pines Resort.
Not far from the main house are two guesthouses and a manager’s house.
“There’s one two-bedroom guesthouse that’s adjacent to the main house that has a large kitchen and living room in the center, and it divides the house,” Brown says. “The bedrooms are on either side, and they’re identical. The bathrooms are exquisite.”
The other guesthouse is a single story with one bedroom, a kitchen, and dining and living rooms. The manager’s house is similar.
The fields are in working order for growing crops and also provide areas for world-class waterfowl hunting.
“This is simply the best. It has the best hunting, the best sporting opportunities, the best accommodations, the best location,” Brown says. “It’s just the pinnacle of sporting pursuits in the Southeast.”
Hunting and fishing Areas
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Quail, whitetail deer, ducks, and turkeys are abundant on the property. There’s also a dock with private boat access to the Combahee River and a 3,300-foot grass airstrip, which could be expanded to 5,000 feet.
“The perfect buyer really would be someone with the love of the outdoors and, of course, South Carolina history, early American history, and someone who really enjoys duck hunting and quail hunting,” Brown says. “It’s probably one of the more attractive and appealing properties that I’ve ever been on. I mean, it’s just absolutely magnificent.”
The post South Carolina’s Most Expensive Home Just Had Its Price Cut by 30% appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.
from https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/price-cut-south-carolina-most-expensive-historic-southern-plantation/
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