I'LL TAKE IT, THE TREE SEEMS TO SAY a new, slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm.
It snowed last a few days ago, and the heat – and bright sunlight – that came by in the storm’s wake have successfully melted all of the residue. When Septimus wakes in the morning, he wakes with intent. (It is so rare, lately, for there to be much direction to his cheerful wandering. He still needs to fix his magic, to regain his ancient powers and become what he should be, not the mortal shell; but the concern is slow, and he is so easily distracted, and he has such a poor grasp of time.) It is still dark when he rises, stretches out his wings, and leaves through the gates of the capital city. He could have flown, if he’d wanted to arrive in the stretch of meadow he’d left off at last evening more quickly, but he walks instead, enjoys the feel of the sun rising slowly and the meadow coming to light with daybreak.
It is still pre-dawn. The horizon is a blush of peach and gold, barely extending her tender fingers into the navy darkness of night. The light isn’t much, but it is enough to begin working, even with frost clinging to the plants like spiderwebs, even though there is a thin gauze of fog as far as the eye can see, even though – or especially because – he is still half-asleep and the snap of cold and movement is only just beginning to stir him into proper wakefulness. He shakes his head, wraps his wings about him like a thick coat, and pulls out the notebook that he has been working in – one with a newer cover, stamped with intricate flowers and roiling masses of ivy. He has only had it for a few years, but there are added, yellowed pages and many, many tabs of notes sticking out of its body. He eyes it for a moment, from above, unsuccessfully swallowing down a yawn, and he finally finds the tab that is the soft dawn-red of the court’s colors. He flips the book open to the tab, and then he finds another tab within the section, this one pale green, and then, in the green section, he finds a white tab. Novus Flora / Delumine / Illuster Meadow / Winter. His cataloguing system is not fancy, but that makes it all the easier to find his place when he is forced to wake early – or in the middle of the night.
Realistically, there are only so many plants that grow in the cold of winter. He knows this without requiring confirmation. The lion’s share of trouble will be the spring, though he is only about halfway through the meadow and he has already found more than he expected. Septimus skims over the pages, re-familiarizing himself with the winter flora that he has already sketched and noted – only half of them have their names written, the result of numerous (but not yet enough) conversations with the locals -, then turns to the first empty page.
He dips his head low to the meadow – disturbed, here and there, by gusts of wind that send the dry grass bobbing like waves on the sea – and begins to search for the next plant to add to his catalog.
@Andras|| welp, beetles aren't in season, but plants........ "Speech!"
AND RARELY, IF THE WOOD ACCEPTS THE BLADE WITHOUT CONDITIONSthe two pieces keep their balance in spite of the blow❃please tag Septimus! contact is encouraged, short of violence
AND I KNOW THAT ROME WASN'T BURNT IN A DAY
BUT IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE THAN A WEEK
E
very day is simple. Comfortable. He tells himself this.
The routine is simple: walk through the library, brushing the tips of his wings against volumes far older than he is, and far older than anyone else he knows; walk through the woods to the court, where the street lanterns aren't lit for another few hours yet; wait, and wait, and wait until his favorite book shop, the one with wide, square windows rimmed in black wood and ivy, opens its doors with a "morning, Warden," tossed in.
The routine is simple. The routine is comforting. Andras is a creature of habit.
--And, yet, the more he walks, the more he waits, the more the fall and then the winter wears on, and on, and on... the stiffer his stride, or the louder his crackle, or the faster the thumping of his heart in the back of his head.
Today, Andras makes tea before leaving the library, pours it into a ceramic cup before leaving the fire for the creatures that tend to its shelves. He carries it through the woods toward the city and tries not to think about blood in the snow or frozen to trees, and tries not to think of the Solterran sun and the smell of spices and the desperate longing that beats at him whenever he does.
It is so much easier, not to think. The routine is simple. Follow it soundlessly. Follow it thoughtlessly. A movement of the body through time and nothing more. It should be easy. It should be so easy.
Andras looks at the looming court, just a darker shape against an already dark sky, lifts his mug to his lips, and sips. He stares for a long moment. He decides, not today, and turns toward the meadow, where there is a distinct tinkling sound, like glass knocking together, that sounds at once familiar and not.
He supposes he has nothing better to do, these days.
"This is unexpected," Andras says quietly, from a few yards behind. His tea has gone mostly cold in the dark morning air but he sips again anyway, holding the mug close to his chest, wrapping his wings around himself much like the other does.
In retrospect, he should have known it was Septimus. The warden doesn't know the man well, and, frankly, wonders where he's been, but the turning of pages and the studious, diligent intensity with which he's been scouring the meadow while Andras approaches seems like the only possible option for him. Andras can't breathe and doesn't quite know why.
It might be that he realizes, almost all at once, that he admires this man, face down in the gold winter grass, paging through a notebook. Once opened, his heart has been full of surprises.
"Are you looking for anything in particular?" he asks, still quietly, so as not to disturb Septimus' work, taking one last drink of cold tea before tucking the mug under his wing for safekeeping. The winter wind blows through him like ice.
I'LL TAKE IT, THE TREE SEEMS TO SAY a new, slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm.
Strictly speaking – he smells the tea before he notices the man who is carrying it. The revelation of Andras is soon to follow, however. Septimus raises his head, and he tosses the warden a lopsided, closed-lip smile as he approaches, the wind stirring his dark curls. He doesn’t put down his notebook, however, or the quill floating precariously alongside it, dripping ink. (A dollop of it falls off the tip and lands like dew on the leaf of the plant below. Septimus quickly dips it back into the pot, and holds both suspended alongside him; no use in wasting ink. It’s rather expensive.)
He has barely had time to look up when Andras speaks. He probably should have noticed him sooner, but Septimus has always been quick to get engrossed in his work. (It was far less problematic when he still had his magic, but that is beside the point.) This is unexpected, Andras says, and he can’t help but agree. He doesn’t know him particularly well, and he hasn’t seen him in some time.
He knows that he is the warden, now. He knows that certain, awful things have happened in Delumine in his absence, though he is somewhat remiss on the details. (Something about poaching, which he was present for, and something about murders, which he was decidedly not.) He might feel bad about his absence, but Septimus is- so old that he stopped counting centuries (or, more likely, a millennium or two) ago. Mortal life is difficult, and stressful, and fleeting, and so much of significance can happen during what is to Septimus a blink. “It is, isn’t it?” When he throws him a grin, this time, it is all sharp, canine teeth. “I feel like I haven’t spent nearly enough time in Delumine…” The Dawn Court is beautiful. It really is. Septimus has just been intent on finding his magic, and his immortality, all those fundamental bits of himself that were scattered like smoke on the wind when he arrived in Novus, so he hasn’t stayed in any one place for long, in spite of his loose affiliation with the kingdom of the rising sun. He does like it here, though. If he could stay still – and he knows that he can’t (the most that he has managed is a few centuries) -, he wouldn’t mind to settle somewhere like this.
That said – Septimus is not planning to settle any time soon. Andras takes another long drink of his tea, and then he tucks the mug into his wing in a way that strikes Septimus as precarious. (But, then, he always has his satchels; he has never had to use his wings for storage, and he would likely be clumsy if he tried.) Are you looking for anything in particular?
Septimus is quick – and eager – to answer. “Something like that. I’m trying to catalog all of the flora that grows in Delumine during the winter.” He inclines his head, the glass-blown trinkets strewn across his antlers clinking rhythmically – like chimes, almost – as he does. “Did anything in particular bring you out so early?”
He wonders. He really does. It is cold, this time of the morning, especially in the winter – inhospitable. He barely ever sees a soul.
He has been here two years, mostly rootless. He supposes that it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to get to know some of the other inhabitants a bit better – and the best way to do that is with questions.
AND RARELY, IF THE WOOD ACCEPTS THE BLADE WITHOUT CONDITIONSthe two pieces keep their balance in spite of the blow❃please tag Septimus! contact is encouraged, short of violence
AND I KNOW THAT ROME WASN'T BURNT IN A DAY
BUT IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE THAN A WEEK
A
ndras watches him: quill, ink, notebook, rooting around in the field for secrets. Over his shoulder the sun is waking up. Far behind him, the city stirs to live, smoke starting to pour out of chimneys, dishes clinking delicately together in an attempt to collect the morning’s affairs. The sky is smeared with a gray-blue, cold sort of color– but Andras is watching Septimus, rooting around in the field for secrets.
He wonders what that’s like, for just a brief, floating moment, before the thought passes into the static hum of his heart.
Then Andras remembers that Septimus was gone, for almost a year (or maybe more). Monsters, as we know, are never quite monstrous enough in their stories, behind the bars of someone’s teeth or trapped in the page of some well-worn book with loose binding and yellowed pages. Andras almost envies him–
–except that he has his routine, the oft-trodden path from the library to the capitol. He has his stack of books and his windowless room and his single candle and the faint scent of desert spice that still lingers weeks later, unless he’s imagining it (and he’s not brave enough to wonder, just yet.) He has his cold tea and his cup tucked under his wing and everything is right and comfortable and safe.
He wouldn’t have it any other way… right?
“You and me both,” he admits, Septimus’ smile mirrored in his own, though Andras grins with a mouth full of flat teeth made sharp by their touching. Sharp teeth that are only sharp in the mind. “but you must have been busy.”
Andras tucks his cup away–it is precarious–and tries not to feel the lump of it beneath his wings as he moves, stepping into Septimus’ trail so as not to get in the way, extending the other to give him leave to do as he pleases.
Septimus mentions his catalog, and Andras looks from his face, to the notebook, to the quill, to the wildflower-freckled grass of the meadow, still mostly frosted except where their bodies have warmed the earth just enough to melt it. Hardy, smiling winter plants that draw their light through the cloud cover must be all that’s left of the field that he knows.
But, he doesn’t come here often, because– well, because–and even if he did, Andras doesn’t know much about botany to begin with. A jack of all trades but a master of none, his mother would say, when she could stand to be around him.
It’s hard to be interested in anything when you are roaring all day and all night. “Have you asked Ipomoea?” he offers. “I think you might know more, but I think he could coax your hard to find ones out of hiding if he tried.”
Andras shrugs. Septimus then asks Andras why he is there, and Andras has to take a moment to think. Why is he? Does he even know the answer? Is it acceptable to say that his life has become so monotonous in this desperate attempt to return to normal when he feels like doing nothing but screaming and laughing and throwing punches (and lightning) that this thing–this one little moment, where he walks off the path and into the field–is the most exciting thing that’s happened to him in weeks?
The warden goes still, and turns his head away. He looks at the rising sun, and thinks nothing.
“Just on a walk.” he says, with an air of finality. There will be no more to the answer from him. “Where were you?”
I'LL TAKE IT, THE TREE SEEMS TO SAY a new, slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm.
At Andras’s admission, and then his faint smile, Septimus’s own grows – then stops, although he is still smiling, at You must have been busy. Septimus can’t help but wish that he’d been busier than he was. He was busy, of course; millennia of working on his own had granted him a truly impressive skill for time management. However, he also had the distinct feeling that, no matter how busy he was and had been, none of it really mattered in the broader scheme of things, and it was that sense of insignificance that had driven him back towards Delumine, and towards other people. “Not half as busy as you, I imagine,” he echoes, smile lingering on his lips. It tastes faintly melancholic on his mouth; how long has he been gone? Surely, it’s been a year. A year of mortal time. Normally, that would mean nothing to him, but it’s been meaning more, lately. He can’t say for sure why.
He moves to trail after him, and Septimus continues to work, with the occasional glance up; Andras doesn’t seem to want to interrupt, and Septimus is more than happy to oblige him that. (Besides, he finds that conversations are better held in more comfortable settings; ones that are less frosted over.) When Septimus speaks of his conundrum, he mentions the sovereign, Ipomoea, and says that he might be able to coax some more troublesome specimens from the ground, even at this time of the year. Septimus takes that as an implication that he has some sort of plant-related magic, which is as good a reason to finally meet the Dawn Court’s sovereign as any. “I’m not sure that I’ve even met him,” Septimus admits, nodding his head thoughtfully. “Sounds like I should, though. What’s he like?” Andras is, after all, the Warden – he must know their leader to so much as bring him up.
He has leaned down to study the sharp, rigid prickles of some plant with an especially hard seed when Andras asks a question he has been caught somewhere between anticipating and dreading. He nearly reaches for one of his notebooks, but he manages to strangle the impulse before he can open to his diagrams and begin showing Andras what he has been working with in the most elaborate detail possible. (Magical circle upon circle, diagram after diagram of strange thing upon strange thing, chemical analysis, pages upon pages of equations…) “I’ve been studying the island, mostly.” There is a gleam in his bright green eyes as he continues. “It seems to change with the end of each season, and it’s only become stranger and stranger with each shift. I’ve been trying to find the source of it – we don’t know much of anything about it, but that it’s dangerous, and I think that it would be in everyone’s best interest to better understand the place. It attracts travelers constantly, and sometimes I feel like....I feel like it's growing towards something.” That was why they made guides and books and studies – for understanding, and for safety, and for wonder. He shakes his head, green jewels clinking against his antlers like a row of windchimes, and a wry smile twists its way across his lips. “But plenty of magic defies any kind of explanation. I’m not sure that I’ve found anything, and I’m not sure that there’s anything to find.”
He nearly asks what Andras has been doing in his absence, but then he pauses.
Here is where Septimus settles, his dark wings shifting, then settling, at his sides. He’s heard the rumors, of course. He doesn’t know how many of them are true – but he’s heard them, and they’re enough to make him feel a wide streak of sympathy for Delumine’s more powerful figures. “I must have missed a lot.” It isn’t a question. It’s not a question at all. But it is, ostensibly, an invitation, an extension of a metaphorical shoulder – an, if you need to talk about it… by any other name.
What he’s learned from several thousands of years (if not more) of wandering, he’s sure, is this: the world is often cruel and often untrustworthy, even in the moments that we think it is kind.
AND RARELY, IF THE WOOD ACCEPTS THE BLADE WITHOUT CONDITIONSthe two pieces keep their balance in spite of the blow❃please tag Septimus! contact is encouraged, short of violence
AND RARELY, IF THE WOOD ACCEPTS THE BLADE WITHOUT CONDITIONSthe two pieces keep their balance in spite of the blow❃please tag Septimus! contact is encouraged, short of violence
