triangularity | Open RP post for Rosie (Spindle's End)

Rosie has mostly gotten used to living in town in the wheelwright's house. She does love Barder, and of course she's glad that he wanted her and Aunt to live with them when he married Katriona. Rosie has trouble imagining the cottage where she grew up without Kat. But the town sounds aren't the sounds she's used to. All of the noises are people or domestic animals. It's louder, and yet too quiet in the room she has all to herself.

The forge, thank goodness, hasn't changed. And Narl is about as unchangeable as the iron he works with. She's grateful for the apprenticeship with him; it gives her something to do with herself. It holds at bay all of the echoing questions that moving into town set off.

With Narl out of town for the day, Rosie makes a hasty retreat to the woods to visit with all her less domesticated friends. She's missed them.

Rosie is kneeling on the ground silently staring into a fox's face when the vixen alerts her to someone approaching. She looks around, waiting. Rosie isn't afraid of any animals in the woods, though the fox may vanish as soon as Graham or the wolf comes into view.

Edited 2016-05-26 04:59 (UTC)

For Graham, the woods will always be the place where he's most at home, no matter how many times that definition has shifted over the years or how many different woods he's passed through. He's only adapted so far as he's learned to accept certain human comforts, but he doesn't have a single complaint about leaving those behind to embrace the part of the world that accepted him, and where he thought he belonged. And at the moment, that familiarity is something he desperately needs until he finds his way again.

He's not naive, and he's well aware that he's drastically oversimplifying his problems, but he needs to hunt for food and get some rest before he'll be able to move on anyway. The wolf at Graham's side is usually the first to alert him when they're close, to what he's hoping is a deer, and as soon as he gives his usual signals he readies his bow. He takes a slow step forward when something much quicker than a deer darts past them, and his eyes barely track the blur of movement that rustles the nearby brush.

It's no sooner that he recognizes it as a fox that he catches a glimpse of blonde hair and freezes where he stands.

From all his wandering, he didn't know how close he was to a village, and if he didn't think that she had already spotted him he may have simply backed deeper into the woods to keep from startling her. That's not the case though, and he tries to think of an excuse to why he was intruding on her territory.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you." Or to seem threatening with a weapon, which he's quick to lower at his side. After spending so much of his time recently with wolves, it feel strange to address someone like this, and he hopes he isn't starting off by making her uncomfortable. "I didn't expect to run into anyone out here."

Rosie's startled gaze slides to the wild for a moment, but not with any apprehension. By the time she focuses back in on Graham, he's already apologizing and lowering his bow.

"I didn't either. No one human at least." She addresses the wolf rather than Graham, aloud so that her fellow human will understand, next time she speaks. "We don't see many wolves in the Gig. You're far from home."

She doesn't begrudge people hunting, but Rosie can't say she's disappointed her vulpine friend got away. Her corner of the country is mostly wooded areas and small backwater towns. Lord Pren should probably know about an outsider hunting in his woods, but Rosie doubts he'd mind. The Prendergasts are easygoing nobles and there's rarely trouble in the Gig.

Graham worried that she might shout or that she wasn't as alone as she seems, and he relaxes slightly when she greets him in a more friendly tone. He also notices the way she regards the wolf without fear. It's nothing he's used to, and he tries to respond in kind.

"I am," he acknowledges, without stating where he came from. That can be difficult for anyone to understand, so he'll do his best to avoid the question from coming up. After an awkward pause -- a kind of conscious effort to act as he thinks is polite -- he takes a step closer. "My name is Graham. If we're trespassing on your land, point us in the right direction and we'll leave you in peace."

Edited 2016-06-04 20:51 (UTC)

"It's not my land," Rosie protests immediately. "I'm nobody important. Apprentice horse leech in Foggy Bottom. I'm good with animals, that's all."

An understatement. Rosie, while not any sort of fairy herself, is family to the best fairies on the Gig and has the sort of beast speech that is exceedingly rare even among adult fairies. She's always talked to them just the same as people, though she can't always translate their answers into human speech. Some things just don't carry over.

"I'm Rosie," she adds, partly because politeness demands it and partly because she's genuinely curious about Graham and his wolf. She would ask if the wolf has a name, but he seems more of a wild creature than a domestic one. Names aren't important to animals, at least not to the ones that grew up outdoors.

He smiles softly when she mentions that she's good with animals, and regards her more closely. It's been days since he last spoke to someone who seemed so willing to treat him like a person. Not that he's run across many as he traveled through unfamiliar woods.

Honestly, he's glad to have found someone who didn't take ownership of land that they should have no more claim to than the animals who existed there long before they discovered it. For that reason, and the fact that she isn't ushering him away, he decides to stay. Possibly get his bearings. The wolf seems to have already arrived at that page with him, and he sits beside them, watching the girl curiously.

"That could be why he's so comfortable around you," Graham says softly, glancing once to the wolf before refocusing on her. "Have you always lived here?"

"No, but I was too young to remember when Aunt brought me home to live with her and Kat, so I don't know anywhere besides the Gig." Which is as good as a yes. This is the only home Rosie can picture, and she adores her aunt and cousin.

She hesitates just a moment before forging ahead. If he stops into Foggy Bottom, he'll hear who Rosie is quick enough. Raised by the two village witches, and she has beast speech even if she never did develop any other magic. "He's comfortable around me because he knows I can understand him. I can't always translate, though. Not all animal speech works in human words, even when you think it should. How did you end up together?"

Graham follows her with the wolf at his side, taking in their surroundings as he walks and looking for any sudden movements or people who aren't as welcoming to confront them. It's different everywhere he goes, and he doesn't want a false sense of security to be his downfall.

Despite his divided attention, he is still listening as she explains, but the moment she reveals that she can speak to animals he nearly stops in his tracks. Magic? His mouth hangs open until he becomes aware of it, and the fact that she just asked him a question.

"He's my brother." He isn't ashamed to admit to that much. They are and have always been his family. "I was raised by wolves. We were separated for a time, but he came a long way to find me again."

Rosie has no idea that when she was a baby, she nursed from every kind of mammal Kat could find during their trip back from the princess' name day. Rosie doesn't know who she is, still thinking herself another one of Aunt's orphaned nieces rather than the heir to the kingdom.

She pauses when Graham tells her that, leaning over and offering her face to the wolf to rest her cheek against his. (It's terribly rude to pet wild animals without their invitation. Gestures of the sort they make are much more socially acceptable.)

"Most people outgrow their beast speech, just baby magic that they get before growing into real magic. I didn't, and I don't have any other magic. That's Aunt and Kat. I'm apprenticed to the smith for horse doctoring instead."

After admitting that, he wasn't sure how she would react, so the fact that she stops to reassure the wolf speaks to her acceptance in a way he doesn't expect. It makes him feel safe, and to want to trust her. To not be afraid of her magic, even though there's only been one person he's ever fully felt comfortable with having it.

"The horses must be well cared for, then." Maybe it's an awkward response, but he felt the need to pay her some sort of compliment for the kindness she's showed him. The way she talks about it, he feels more comfortable asking more about it. "I don't know a lot about the different types of magic. Is that something that everyone here is born with?"

"Of course not. It's just... necessary. There's a lot of magic in this kingdom, and without at least one person in any town who can use it, we'd be in trouble. Have you noticed any butterflies in the woods? They're forever being turned into different things. Some of them look like tiny winged fairies, or have extra sets of wings. Don't eat any fish. They might not be fish, really." Rosie has never attempted to talk to a fish. Everyone would consider it a bit blasphemous if she had.

"If you have any bread, tell it to stay bread before you cut it. No one wants their supper to turn into something else."

His stomach twists and he gets a shade paler as she warns him of things that he wishes he'd been aware of before now. There's nothing magical about him, he can't sense it the way Rosie might, but he thought that he'd been around it enough to see the signs. It wipes away any comfort he'd taken by staying out in the woods.

"That's good to know." How he wishes he could recall every meal he's had over the last several days. It's a terrible thing to second guess. He tries to be calm as he speaks, but he can't hide his concern. "Magic exists where I come from, but I haven't been many places where it's so widespread. Is it something in the land or the sorcerers here?"

"Oh, the land. There are magicians and there are fairies, but the thing about this kingdom is that the magic is so thick that it settles like dust and we have to clean our houses twice as often. My magic is just baby magic, like a handful of ordinary people get." If much more intense and long lasting.

"Most people grow out of things like talking to animals. I've always been afraid I would." She hasn't yet, and she's old enough that she probably ought to have. The admission isn't one she would make to a friend. Somehow the fact that Graham is a stranger not just to her but to the Gig and the kingdom makes it easier.

It's fortunate that he ran into her before he experienced anything more alarming, so he nods in gratitude while he absorbs these new facts. His lips twist in a small smile at the way she calls it 'baby' magic, as if it isn't extraordinary at all. Graham has spent more of his life with animals than people, at least when he had the choice, and actually thought that they communicated quite well. Suddenly he feels like a novice standing in front of someone like her.

"I can imagine they wouldn't forget you, even if you had." Graham considers her for a quiet moment, then takes in a breath and asks something that he knows he needs to get to. Even if he's not sure which answer he prefers. "How often do you get visitors from other lands?"

Rosie can grasp, just barely, what it must be like to be unable to talk to animals. She can't begin to imagine what it's like for Katriona, who used to be able to, but then lost it. Kat became a real fairy, though, while Rosie is just... Rosie. With beast speech, and so grateful for it.

"Less often than I think most kingdoms have. Everyone who comes here either loves it and stays as long as they can, or they hate it and leave as quickly as possible. And I think they might forget, or stop believing, just how magical the land is once they leave it."

He nods and absorbs her answer, nearly following it with a question about how long it's been since she saw another outsider, but he feels that she may have already answered that. For his part, he never planned on staying longer than he needs to. It's just that as directionless as he is, as lost, he's not overly anxious to head out on his own again. At least, not when the wolf seems so willing to trust their new friend.

When she mentions forgetting a magical place, his expression hardens, but his tone is still tentative when he continues. "Why would they hate it?"

"It's just that it takes adjustment, I think. We're all well used to the quirks of living here. Anyone who doesn't have a fairy to descale their kettles of magic has to grow a vine that can do the same, for instance, so they don't end up with something besides water in their teacups."

Rosie makes a face. "Pruning one of those is like going into battle; I've been taking care of our neighbor's dja vine since we moved into the wheelwright's house and Kat and Aunt's magic made it grow like crazy. I think I know how armies felt fighting fire wyrms all those years ago."

Open RP post for Rosie (Spindle's End)

for Graham

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject