Roalis 29, 2719 | Mid-Morning
Overgrown Arbour, Brunnhold Grounds
Overgrown Arbour, Brunnhold Grounds
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Fionn had always liked greenery, possibly more than the vibrant variance of flowers. Flowers were pretty things but fragile and transient, such short lived things. There were also plenty of trees and bushes that shed their foliage in preparation for wintertime, which provided a colourful display before everything became lifeless. In spite of that, there were always some plants that kept their colour all year round, offering an array of lush green hues that brightened things and reminded one that life existed even in the depths of winter when so many things struggled. The boy couldn’t be said to have green fingers — he did have some gardening experience — but he did like green things.
One of them had been ivy. Had. At this point, the teenager was beginning to detest the sight of it and it was all Aurelie’s fault.
He’d wrapped her hand in a handkerchief that time she’d cut it in the kitchens without a second thought. It hadn’t been his and he couldn’t have cared less about what happened to it or if he never got it back. He’d needed something to work as a bandage and it had been conveniently there. Of course, the kitchen maid being extremely sweet had felt the need to not only pay him back for his unthinking gesture but to make it a gift, going to the effort to embroider ivy onto a handkerchief for him. Fionn was grateful — of course he was grateful — but it did leave him feeling obligated to her. How could she expect him to accept a gift from her without providing one of his own in return?
So he’d been thinking about it since Loshis. She probably thought that he’d forgotten, if the thought of him reciprocating had even crossed her mind, but the youth had remembered, he just… it was so difficult.
He’d wanted whatever he gave her to have meaning and to show effort. A drawing would have done that, or he hoped that it would have but it would be something that she’d have to hide, a possibility of punishment if it was discovered. Not to mention that a drawing on good quality paper would have been a bit too easy to trace back to him. Most importantly, whatever he tried to draw simply wasn’t good enough! It was embarrassing how slipshod his artwork seemed when he attempted to channel it for her.
The only other thing that he had some talent at — aside from stealing and rearranging people’s faces — was making bracelets. At one point, he had made them with whatever he could get his hands on, strips of cloth, shoelaces, grass — anything! It had seemed fitting that he should make one for Aura and incorporate ivy into it, the vines a good and durable material with flexibility, perfect for weaving and braiding.
There was nothing perfect about it; ivy had proven to be a nightmare.
He hadn’t just been thinking about his gift for the passive since Loshis, he’d been trying to make the damn thing since then as well! His latest attempt was the best one yet, hopefully the final thing, but had been no easy task getting to this point. It had taken him awhile to understand how to process the stuff in a way that would make it suitable for his purposes and it had taken time to familiarise himself with the material but he was getting there at last.
The youth had managed to soak the ivy vines overnight, coiled in a bowl that Fionn had hidden away in Professor Keyes’ office, hoping for all the world that the man wouldn’t happen upon them. If he had then he had let them be, seemingly untouched and undisturbed when he’d snuck into the office to get them earlier this morning. The teenager had managed to secure one of the artist’s finer knives, wrapping layers of fabric around the blade and placing it in a sock so it couldn’t do any damage while he was transporting it. He had still been understandably nervous when he hid the small knife down the front of his trousers and it had little to do with the silhouette it created, something easily made to look more organic with the use of another sock.
One could never be too careful when there was a knife in one’s trousers; complacency wouldn’t end well.
The other necessary materials had been pilfered quite some time ago so it was just a matter of transporting them and sequestering himself away somewhere relatively private. Ironically, Aurelie had suggested the perfect location for him and of course, she might happen upon him in the overgrown garden space, ruining the surprise. It made the young man twitchy with paranoia, expecting the redhead or some other passive to come across him as he worked. As such, it made him look up periodically, peering around unkempt bushes and through the foliage of a rather low hanging branch.
It wasn’t the first time that he’d been in this little secret garden of his… girlfriend (he’s considered ‘lady friend’ but it had seemed insulting, ‘lover’ had been too much and calling her his Aura seemed a tad presumptuous) but he hadn’t had much chance to enjoy the place exactly. Not that the place had been properly enjoyed in awhile judging by how little it had been cared for.
It had a single iron bench, clunky and outmoded, coated in gods knew how many layers of what must once have been a glossy black paint, and none of which had been applied all that recently. Now it was peeling into ugly curls or flaking off all together, dull black or dark grey from age, the elements or both. Where the multiple coatings had pulled away entirely from the bench, the metal underneath had grown orange-red with rust, the particles crumbling off its surface. If he’d been able to relax and didn’t have his hands occupied then the passive might have picked at the flaking layers, even though his skin and nails would have come away clogged with the evidence of the seat’s decay. Trees that had probably once stand languidly at the near perimeter had been allowed to stretch upwards, bowing towards each other under the weight of their leafy crowns until they formed a chaotic canopy. The branch nearest to him had gone on an odd downward path so that he could almost use it as an armrest, although it hadn’t been like that just the previous month so perhaps the weather had affected it. Even with it screening him — as well as one could be screened in this lush green in his servant blues — he didn’t feel secure.
The garden was overgrown. There had once been flower beds here, but they had largely died off, perhaps choked by creepers or eliminated by the more aggressive wildflowers — what many people would term weeds — although some of the once ornamental flowers had managed to escape into odd corners. It was mainly green and certainly wild so it was no wonder that it unvisited by the galdori population. The fact that no one passed this way should have been security enough. Birds were here in abundance judging by the constant twittering and chirping and while they’d take up residence near to people, their numbers suggested that they felt safe. Fionn kind of wished that he was one of them, largely unseen and with the ability to take flight at will — and get away.
His frequent glances made his work more difficult, his progress slower than it could have been and it was already slow enough. He needed to be careful, so careful because it needed to be right after all this effort. He’d tied one end of the ivy to a twig of the branch beside him, using it as a support for his fiddly work and something that would allow him to pull the bracelet strands taut as he worked, but it also allowed him to make a loop so the finished product could be tied and its length adjusted. He’d tied his other materials — a dark green wool and a brown shoelace — to the ivy close to where it wrapped the branch and was now going to the painstaking effort of braiding the three together. He could braid but he was clumsy at it. He had to consciously think of how the pieces had to interlace.
The off-white of the stripped ivy in the middle with brown on one side and green on the other. The brown folded over the white to sit between green and white and then the green crossed over the brown to sit between white and green.
White over brown. Green over white. Brown over green. White over brown.
He went okay except for when the weave looked messy and he had to untangle it to the point before the unsightly lump and do it again. He’d get there though and then he could tie it off and it would be perfect. It had to be perfect.
The passive had braided about three inches to his high standards when his flow was interrupted, the servant slowing and then stopping all together, body tense.
The birds were a good indicator, a change in the song as something put them off. Fionn didn’t realise what it meant, couldn’t have placed what had changed but he knew that something had. Unsettled but not knowing the reason, he peered through his screening branch and- There! A few yards away, creeping across the undergrowth was a student; the Brunnhold greens were a dead giveaway.
First, the teenager panicked, pulse spiking as he considered how this might look if the boy saw him. Then he became confused because he was wearing the uniform of a galdor and his field should be in range but-
He felt it late, its range short of average but it was there, a field rather than a nexus. Small but galdor, not passive in spite of his sneaking and he was sneaking. Actually, he had the look of someone who thought they were doing a good job at it but was really trying so hard that he made himself more conspicuous. If Fionn hadn’t been the only one to see him then he would have drawn attention. But he was the only one here and while he should have worried about his discovery — far too early in the day for a passive to have leisure time — the youth was curious instead.
Holding himself still, the blond peered through the foliage, the loose strands of his work wrapped around his hand so it was kept taut because he still had the presence of mind not to abandon the damn thing. The boy—more of a man really because he was fully grown and tall at that—had a cap crammed down over his head, perhaps to protect himself from the cruel Roalis sun but he could still see some dark strands peeking out from beneath it because he wasn’t the neatest. He had a dishevelled air, almost slovenly, but it reminded him of himself, the way he used to be — not that he was too tidy himself right now. The blonde’s appearance was further cause for concern, his sleeves rolled up, too many shirt buttons undone so that the garment gaped at the chest, and he’d tugged it out from the band of his trousers as well. It had seemed like a good idea at the time — it was hot.
This one hadn’t come out to enjoy the sunshine but he had clearly come to appreciate nature. He’d found one of the pretty flowers that had managed to stray some distance from its original planting site and he looked as if he was-
He laughed. The blond couldn’t help it. It was the most ridiculous thing imaginable so he had laughed aloud — too loudly. The young man appeared to be trying to steal it, or at least part of it. The attitude of a thief sniffing the air for signs of being caught in the act had been a dead giveaway, hardly the casual nonchalance that Fionn had attempted to employ on many occasion. But to see a galdor adopt such a manner and over a flower. There wasn’t even anyone around to see it! The passive certainly didn’t count as someone — not to them.
Considering that he’d given himself away and he couldn’t pretend that a very strange bird had come along, it was time to reveal himself. A few quick movements allowed him to wrap his project around the branch and tuck it so it — hopefully — wouldn’t unravel before he stood and wiped his hands on his trousers
"Good morning!" he greeted pleasantly, well aware that he had already stepped over a line; here he was interacting with a galdor as if this was perfectly normal and they were on an equal footing. “Don’t let me disturb you by any means but… you know you can just take it, right? It’s not as if anyone will clocking care.”
He stepped nearer to the youth, tensing a little as he drew into the monic presence. It was different than some he’d come across and he imagined that there were some galdori who sniggered about its size — despite trying to claim that such things didn’t matter. Fionn didn’t think that it did—matter—because a field was a field. Not that he was paying all that much attention to it, not really. The man’s height had struck him instead, as had the tan, a swarthiness to his skin that reminded him of another although his hair had been lighter in shade, not this black as he could tell it was now.
Sweet Lady, don’t! he told himself, his breath hitching as he thought of Ayden. Now wasn’t the time to think of his former lover, or ever for that matter. The familiarity unsettled him, but he didn’t know if the fluttering within him was fear or a warped sort of delight. It made him more inclined to be nonchalant, the hard man, the thing that he most certainly wasn’t in this moment.
Fionn plunged his hands into his pockets, shifting his weight to one leg, relaxed in his untidy glory.
“I don’t think this is a popular spot… but I think you knew that. If you’re going to steal, you could try looking a bit less obvious about it. You might as well have announced it,” Fionn remarked dryly, laughing softly.
As if he didn’t care. As if he wasn’t frightened on some level about what this brat could do.
