Elsewhere and Otherwise

Moira Brighton glanced at her phone and scowled. A text from Rebecca - explaining that she’d not only managed to confirm that this ‘John Newman’ was telling the truth about building the shrine but that the entire situation with him had suddenly got more complex because of… Moira squinted, the words on the screen not really making any sense. A key? Some pictsies? Getting to the bottom of this one was going to be another afternoon’s headache, which seemed to be increasingly the case when she spoke with the novice.

Not that her day had been that great to start with. Classes at Ashcroft were always a chore, a largely pointless one that her father insisted on. For most of her classmates, the lessons in business, history, culinary science and so on would be beneficial in giving them a well rounded skillset to call on in their future careers. For Moira, her future career had been mapped out from the day she was born. Grow up, hold a shield between the innocent and evil, smite said evil with a big hammer, a big sword, or indeed just about any kind of big melee weapon, get married to someone - probably a suitably talented knight of the Order - and then hopefully not die before her daughter came of age. No part of ‘defend-the-innocent and smite-the-unworthy’ needed her to be able to explain the finer points of the tulip bubble, and as for the ‘making-a-daughter’ thing, even somewhere with as many electives as Ashcroft didn’t have classes covering those sorts of skills.

Even so, today had been more of a chore than usual, and it was all her friend’s fault. She’d gone to consult with Lorelei regarding the blessing that Rebecca had apparently been given by John, hoping for a discussion at least with the one person in the Order who she could talk to as an equal that wouldn’t also second guess her (unlike her father). It’d been going well - the pair had been sitting in one of the long galleries near to the seer’s chamber when Lorelei’s mouth had closed mid-sentence like a trap falling shut. When it opened again, her voice was layered with rich overtones that Moira had only heard a few times before - always concerning major events.

Despite being in a trance, Lorelei hadn’t needed the Warden to repeat the words she’d spoken back to her after giving her prophecy; the images that formed them were (or so she said) written onto her soul - a little melodramatic for Moira’s taste, but she’d left the seer frantically dictating notes to one of the scribes a short time after that. It wasn’t as if the Warden couldn’t remember them too, and any further details that were to be gleaned from Lorelei’s impressions could take weeks, months or even years to be fully understood.

The prophecy itself was vague, confusing, and largely allegorical - which, as far as Moira’s experience was concerned, was the usual case for such things. Flopping into her preferred seat in the library with the guards ordered to notify her the instant Rebecca and John arrived so that she could move somewhere better suited to meeting them, the Warden turned the words over in her head yet again.

Three sisters apart survive but do not thrive,
yet together the gardener who prunes their form
would go against their nature to do so.
Four siblings grow, a shattered family,
but will the father turn them from a dark path?
The outcast flees a fifth,
but praises the four.
Sanctuary calls forth for the huddled masses,
while the classless turn against their masters.
The rising of the unawakened,
my gifts to the hierophant, the motherless, and the herald.
Who will remain whom,
at the end of these days.

Utter. Mystic. Babble. Moira yet again suppressed the urge to scream as she tried to put any kind of meaning to the words. There were hints for sure; some of the language was similar to past prophecies, and she was pretty sure the hierophant usually referred to either the one the prophecy was given to - Lorelei - or the one it was for, presumably but not definitely Moira. The idea of a shattered family seemed to refer to her directly, and she wondered if the father it mentioned was her own, Lord Brighton. It seemed unlikely, prophecy never usually being so explicit, but her family had certainly broken with the death of her mother and their flight from England - so would her father play a part in helping ensure her Order didn’t turn down a dark path?

Flyx frowned as she scouted the park barrier for more supplies. There had been fairly heavy timber harvesting here recently… that struck her as odd. Most folk didn’t bother cutting their own lumber, not in these quantities. There were a few potions that required truly magical wood, but mostly regular timber that you could buy in any of the hardware stores around town would do - certainly for any light construction work. For everything larger, setting up your own barrier in an existing building was far easier than building your own. And those who liked to use a lot of magical wood in their constructions tended to prefer it still living - so just who had cut a load of branches off the trees?

It didn’t really matter, although she made a note to swing by and see if the pictsies up at the old church had heard anything. They weren’t amazing customers, given a single bottle of potion would usually do for four or five of them for situations where a human might go through a half-dozen bottles, but for knowing the latest gossip, they were more than worth the lack of profit. Besides, Not-So-Wee Jimmy had promised that if she ever had to leave her current accommodation in a hurry, she could bed down in one of their sports halls towards the middle of the building for a night or two. It paid to keep on good terms with folk like that.

She was still mostly breaking even, which did mean that the trip would be a financial pain… then she spotted a tiny flower growing in the shade of a tree and almost squeaked with delight. Ten seconds of careful excavation later, and the plant plus a sizable chunk of soil were nestled safely in a jar in her collecting bag. “Midnight’s kiss, this early in the season!” She giggled to herself as she checked around to see if there were any more. It wasn’t that it was a particularly rare ingredient normally, but to find them this early in the year, well before the winter frost set in, was unusual. In the end, careful scouring of the chilly little clearing she’d been walking through produced two more such blooms.

“That’ll be enough for a half-dozen bottles if I’m careful making the extract… and I’ve still got some fair-weather mushroom caps, and there’ll be some gushing reeds over by the lake… Then all I have to do is stop by one of the less skeevy places to sell the things.” Flyx gave a shudder as she recalled some of the clients she’d sold the rather potent lust potion to the previous winter. Far better to drop the stock off at Felicity’s, she always liked to keep some in stock and this late in the year would probably be almost out before the main harvest came in. “Might even make enough to take a day or two off, at least if I can get out of there without her convincing me to buy a new bra and crotchless panties that nobody is going to see because I am the one fucking goblin in all creation that CAN’T get laid!” she muttered to herself as she stomped off in search of the remaining ingredients.

Matilda closed the cottage door behind her and slumped against it with a heavy sigh. Her fingers twitched towards her phone, but she rather resolutely left it in her pocket. “Gods, it’s only been one day,” she muttered, kicking off her shoes and stomping through to the kitchen. Thirty seconds later, she stood in only her underwear, rummaging in the washing machine before leaning back against the counter with another sigh, this time without the restraint of earlier. “Just one picture would be fine…” she said softly, before hopping up onto the wooden counter-top, raising her phone and arching her back slightly.

One picture turned into ten minutes of frowning and grumbling to herself before she had a set of three (one in her underwear, one with her bra and panties tugged out of the way, and one with her fingers disappearing beneath her) that she was actually happy with. Composing a message to accompany them when she sent them to John would have to wait, however. Firstly, because taking the pictures had gotten her rather worked up, and partially because she was rather hungry after work.

Demolishing a slice of bread on her way to the bedroom, she flopped onto the mattress and inhaled deeply, her face pressed into the pillow on John’s side of the bed. Then she kicked her feet a little bit about the thought that it was already John’s side of the bed as far as she was concerned, rolled over, and got to work on calming herself down.

In the aftermath, she wandered back downstairs after changing into lounge pants and a loose strappy top, then promptly forgot all about the pictures while she made coffee and a more substantial meal. It wasn’t until she’d sat at the table, coffee on one side of the plate and the book John had given her on the other that she remembered. Glancing at the clock, she grinned. It was probably late enough that he should be home and so it’d be fine to send the pictures, but just in case… ”Hey babe, don’t open the next three texts in public,” she typed, before sending the set and biting her lip, wishing she could see his reaction.