Muse
Muse
Once the caretaker of the Weiss family estate, located in the Duchy of Arden, County Westermann. However, the Weiss family has disappeared, and the house has fallen into disarray. Muse has come to Novandria in search of a way to restore it to its former glory.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Extremely tall and extremely thin - picture a half-grown sapling.
Body Features
Muse's body appears to be cast from a pewter-colored metal. It is covered in scrapes and dents and ground-in dirt.
Facial Features
Muse has one green eye and one gold eye. They typically prefer to keep their visor secured over their face, but can remove it to "eat".
Identifying Characteristics
A pair of antlers extends from the top of their helm, and a long tail of what might be black horse hair extends from the back.
Physical quirks
Muse tends to stoop or even fully crouch while moving. They avoid standing at full height.
Apparel & Accessories
Muse tends not to wear clothing. They are still susceptible to cold, however, and can be found wearing a coat or wrapped in a heavy blanket on cold days.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
For their entire living memory, Muse has worked as groundskeeper for the Weiss family. The family estate resides in the Duchy of Arden, County Westermann, near the border to Montaigne.
Gender Identity
Yes.
Sexuality
Capable of romantic attraction, but not sexual attraction.
Education
What education Muse has comes from the books they have read throughout the Weiss manor. They taught themselves to read and write Common and Elvish using primers originally meant for the family's children.
Morality & Philosophy
Muse believes that most creatures will, by nature, do what is best for themselves and the things or other creatures they care about. They apply this to humanoids as well as beasts. They have a strong connection to both the dangers of the wilderness and the warmth of the home, and believe one would be incomplete without the other.
Personality Characteristics
Virtues & Personality perks
Loyal, kind, hard-working
Vices & Personality flaws
Shy, naive, gullible, still very new to the ways of city life
Hygiene
Almost always slightly grungy, even if it's just dirt or soil on their legs.
Social
Contacts & Relations
Betua - familiar/wild companion
Weiss family - Previous (possibly still current?) employers
Religious Views
Muse learned of Fodla's worship from the religious materials left in the Weiss manor and has pursued it since. Now that they have come to Novandria, they have also become aware of Rhodena and have added her to their roster.
Social Aptitude
Minimal.
Hobbies & Pets
Betua, their familiar, who is not precisely a pet. Hobbies include cooking anything that will sit still long enough to be stuffed into a pot.
Speech
Halting and whispery. Probably would not know the definition of "loud" if it walked up and smacked them with an airhorn.
Warforged druid, lover of good food and drink (though they cannot partake in it themselves), and newcomer to the City of Novandria.
View Character Profile
Age
87
Children
Current Residence
The Meadows, Novandria, Eisein
Gender
None
Eyes
One green, one gold
Hair
A long tail of what might be black horsehair extends from the back of their helm
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Pewter
Height
6'10, not including antlers
Weight
350lbs
Waltz
I've only just noticed that the martins have flown
and their music has gone from the wire.
There’s still a good hour for the sun to go down,
but already I'm lighting the fire.
Under the low, golden light of the harvest moon, Harper dances in the cleared street. His foot pounds the familiar rhythm as his hands move like liquid over the strings of his lyre. Around him the townsfolk dance in wild spins and twirls, some laughing as they’re lifted into the air. It’s no stately ballroom like the ones he has described to you, but you’re almost sure no courtly airs could compare to the rough but steady steps of a country waltz.
And we welcomed the springtime, the martins and I.
Now October will find me alone.
There's a pain in a parting without a goodbye -
I’ve just noticed the martins have flown.
Golden lights gleam all around the square. Every inch of every building has been decorated with ribbons and streamers. Villagers of all ages bustle back and forth, arrayed in their brightest, most vibrant clothing. The work is finally done. For the rest of the year they will rest and let their walls protect them from the weight of Rhodena’s wrath. There will be song there, too, in the cold, and the warmth of friendly faces to invite you in from the snow. But the cold has not come yet. For now, the streets run gold with the fruits of the village's labor, and the air is alive with light.
Hear the high lonesome call as the wild geese pass o'er
like a freight train way up in the blue,
as the arrows of autumn to a far southern shore
are flying so straight and so true.
Harper’s eyes pass over you, then snap back. He grins and throws you a wink without losing his place. You don’t dance - you have never been much of a dancer - but you sway at the edge of the square as you hum along. The song is an old one. It is one of the first he played for you, back when he first explained to you what his place in this world was. He says it’s the best one he’s ever written. Every time you hear it anew, you can’t help but agree, even knowing better than anyone what it means.
And we're both birds of passage, the graylag and I,
for the journey is all we have known -
but the long winding road and the vast empty sky
will be there when the wild geese have flown.
He whisks off to join the dance. You have always envied the ease with which he carries his barn-side frame. He was forged with broad, brutal hands, made for crushing. For demolishing. For powering a blade through a blow that could fell any being of armored flesh. Yet he carries them with a carefulness even your slender hands can only dream of. His fingers dance up and down the strings of his lyre with ease, and he leaps into the round with the confident abandon of a river roaring over the familiar, exhilarating ledge of a waterfall.
And a starburst of chaffinches rise from the wind
and scatter like leaves on the air.
When the summer days end and the autumn begins
is a secret the trees never share.
He waited for you to ask.
You swore you wouldn’t, this time. You already know the answer - decades on, and it has never changed. It’s part of the cycle, after all. Part of the rolling wheel of the year. Part of the dance that leads him to your pastures every spring, and leads to the inevitable at the end of every fall. But the purple beams of his eyes drilled into the backs of your shoulders as you packed your things for the harvest festival, and you know your place in the cycle just as well as he does.
And we'll lean to the leeward, the tall pines and I
when the northerlies cut to the bone,
and the birch and the willow and ash heave a sigh
when the last summer breezes have blown.
Your father taught you strength of will, but your mother taught you when to bend. That was what won, in the end. As the two of you stepped out the door of your tiny shepherd’s hut, you reached out to Harper, wrapping a hand around his wrist.
As the dance of the seasons goes ‘round and around,
there's a time for all nature to rest,
when the green summer pastures have faded to brown
and the forest with color is blessed.
The sheep are in their winter pastures now. The hounds have all been fed and are at rest inside the warm walls of what will be your home for the season. The sprawling farm fields between you and the village lay barren. They have been stripped of their harvest - a harvest that will keep the people you serve and live with and love alive, but has left an open wound on the land, one that will remain raw beneath the bandage of winter’s first snow.
“You know I can’t stay,” he says quietly. “But you know I’m glad you always ask, right?”
We'll waltz into winter, the autumn and I,
in a flurry of russet and gold
and the swirl of the snowflakes falling down from the sky
while we watch her white blanket unfold.
He is larger than life, swinging like a bird on the wing among the small, hardy human and dwarven figures around him. His cloak swings outward like amethyst wings as he glides in and out of the dance, and you know you will keep asking him to stay, as long as he keeps coming back.
He will not come back this time.
You don’t know that yet.
We'll waltz into winter, my sweetheart and I,
in the warmth of the love we have known,
and give thanks for another good year that's rolled by
while the closer together we’ve grown.
Devotion
Time slides to the right.
You have never felt so {hollow} [heavy].
There is a mirror. You rest a hand against its surface. Its murky depths are painful to gaze into, but you cannot look away.
The face within the mirror shifts from moment to moment. Sometimes it is a metal helm adorned with {a gleaming, polished aventail} [curved antlers of genuine bone]. Sometimes it is an angular face with pale skin, too {gaunt} [soft] to be your own, but familiar all the same, even with its strange, {short-cropped} [long an untamed] hair and its {granite grey} [green and gold] eyes.
[Sometimes it is a billowing river of blue and silver stardust, and it burns to behold, and your chest cracks under the weight of it, even as your feeble mind blocks every attempt to comprehend it.]
The faces that swirl behind your reflection are familiar, too. You recognize the First Master and First Mistress, with his cold blue eyes and her beautiful black hair. You know their child, and their child's wife, when she finally comes to live at the manor, when they become the Second Master and Second Mistress. You know their sons.
You know how they died.
{Something is}
[wrong.]
You see Ferdinand. What happened to his elder brother was a tragedy, but it [was] {not} his fault. As the last remaining heir to the Weiss name, he inherits all.
[He pushes you until your joints crack, until your plate is scorched and shattered, and then sends you away with an admonishment to not break so quickly next time.]
{He smiles at you for the first time in a decade, and it feels like the sun and stars have rearranged themselves around him, and gods, if only it had been real.}
You press your hand flat against your reflection. This hand is used to the weight of a {shovel} [sword]. You have always wielded it with pride in your family's name.
[What was it all for?]
Your hand curls into a fist.
[You try to pull away.]
{You push through the hazy glass and catch your own wrist in your grip.}
You see [Ama]{Nita}.
She is confidence made manifest. She is certainly condensed into a tiny ball of momentum. She knows exactly what she wants, and when she sets her mind on a goal, she is unstoppable.
{She is crouched over a garden bed. Her face and hands are smudged in dirt. She is talking about substrates, scribbling frantic notes, furiously debating with herself why her latest experiment failed. You have to physically put the plate in her hand before she finally looks at it and realizes she has to eat.}
[The ouroboros eats its own tail. Before the year is out, Ferdinand Weiss dies of a lingering sickness no doctor can identify and no healer can cure. His baroness cares for him into his very last days. She sobs at his bedside, and her tears convince the rest of them, but you know.]
[I couldn't have stopped her.]
{You chose not to stop her.}
[I didn't want to stop her.]
She is the master of her house. She knows precisely where everything belongs. She knows where you belong. She knows what you are, and now it is through her [alone] that you continue to survive.
[The “combat training” stops. She has no need for such direct, barbaric methods. You came to her well-trained. You need no reminder of whose power matters.]
[Her expectations are high, but her punishments only ever match your failures. And as long as you meet those expectations, she damn near ignores you.]
[It's the closest thing to freedom you've ever tasted.]
{It could have been better.}
[Not for me.]
In the depths of the mirror, you see [Mark 1] {Whim}, his broad shoulders braced under the weight of [your enthusiastic embrace] {a heavy pallet of paving stones for the garden}. You see [Mark 2] {Id} as clearly as if she were in front of you, standing in the middle of [the creche's busy corridors] {the manor parlor}, hear her voice spinning a melody like [well-oiled clockwork] {liquid love}.
[Love?]
{Love.}
[You try to jerk your hand away again.]
{You tighten your grip.}
Your insides churn.
[No one came for us. There was no one left.]
{I came for you.}
[You can't save me.]
{No.}
[Then let me go.]
{No.}
You close your eyes. A thousand fragments of memory shatter through your mind. They break up and down your spine like shards of glass, splinters embedding themselves directly into your nervous system. The unfamiliar taste of {steel polish and sword oil} [dew gathered on moss on a cold autumn morning] lingers in your mouth.
[A hand strikes out of the crowd, holding a needle that glints with something red. On reflex alone, you push Amanita behind you. The needle embeds itself into your false skin. You feel a shiver of poison try to sink into your frame, but poison means nothing to you. All that matters is the glittering steel arc of the zweihander as you bring it down upon the arm of the poor fool who dared try to touch her.]
{A cot that is not a cot leaps at Nita. Its teeth bury themselves in her stomach. You have never seen so much blood. Your entire world pivots, and suddenly nothing, not even the family who should hold your complete and unfaltering devotion, matters more to you than her.}
[We keep her safe.]
{Of course we do.}
The images fade. Your reflection begins to go muddy, details hazing out against the murky background. Your interlaced fingers go numb.
[Tell her…]
{Tell her yourself.}
The mirror shatters.
Mirror, Mirror
Time slides to the left.
Amanita Weiss looks up at you with narrowed eyes. She hasn't moved yet. You don't, either.
“Mark 3. You do realize parliament is meeting this afternoon.”
You did not realize this. She has not yet told you. But she hasn't asked for a response yet. You already know what will happen if you give one before she does.
She smiles, all pretty, razored points, like the edges of your blade. “Why are you still that?”
You tilt your head toward the window. She has carefully positioned herself in front of it to block both the clock and any shadows you might gauge the time by. She is small enough in stature that you could simply take a step forward and see over her - but she hasn't given you permission to move. Not yet.
Your grip tightens slightly around the hilt of your sword. “Is there time?”
“They'll wait if I make them.” She folds her hands neatly in her lap. Her green eyes shine like poison, livid and bright. “What is it you need? Four hours?”
“Six, Mistress.”
“Four it is, then,” she says, as if she hadn't heard, but her smile is a wicked dagger's curve. “Quickly, now. Go make yourself presentable.”
–Nita is still asleep in her bed.
Muse's hand finds a doorknob. They push through it and out onto the balcony. The door at the other end, the end that conjoins with Victor and Cardinal's room, is still shut. They stay to their own side, crammed against the balcony, and bring a hand up to press against their face.
Something gives beneath their touch.
They jerk their hand back and stare at it. Blink. Blink again. They wiggle their fingers, staring at the sheath of skin that now encloses them. Then they raise their hand back to their face, pressing soft fingers against high, sharp cheeks - a pointed chin - an aquiline nose - a coarse, curly fringe of black hair. They can still hear their own mechanisms, the faint creak of their own joints suffering under the rain and salty air, but it is muffled, almost noiseless beneath the new layer of padding that covers them.
Six hours. Four, apparently, if pushed. In spite of…everything, Muse's other self had been skilled enough to learn how to create something as incredible as this, and change into it as easily as changing their armor.
They can only wonder, watching droplets of rain pool in the crannies of their new palms, what interesting power that other Muse has now learned from them.
River
I would rather hide and consider this cave to be our homeland than be an outsider everywhere.
The city streets are growing cold. And Muse remembers this feeling. It is etched into their joints like the waves inscribed on the wax cylinder of a phonograph. The playback buzzes in their frame, bringing with it the echo of cold nights spent against tree trunks, under bushes, curled into knotholes…
…the lake in Central Park is cold and clear. It draws them the way it did that first night, when Nita guided them back from the tavern they'd stumbled into. How could they have known, then? How could anyone have known?
Some lands stand strong as mountains
'til earthquakes do them in.
They move down to the edge of the water. They spend a great deal of time in this park, these days. There are always projects to focus on, and people to talk to, and pleasant distractions to drown in. But those distractions are not here. Not at the edge of the lake. Not where they can gaze into the scattered, shattered fragments of light that dance across its surface and imagine what their fractured brilliance might mean.
We have no country of origin.
A nest, they had said to Miranda. A place of safety. Of protection from the outside world. But the word had more meanings, in other tongues. A crèche was also a tableau. Figures frozen in time, in poses of worship, or of triumph - whatever best suited the one who had posed them.
All this time, Muse had been awake. All this time they had let themself be posed at the whim of those they'd believed in. The will of the people they'd loved and had failed to love them back had shaped every inch of the way they carried themself.
Even now, from the opposite side of the coin, were the rest all that different? Frozen in their tableaus of waiting, and longing, and fear, poised to flee at the next threat?
Some lands stand tall as forests
'til the felling axe begins.
Muse pushes one narrow, slender hand through the surface of the water. It flows around their fingers and settles into their joints, a cold shock to their warm system. Maybe they are too used to being warm. But who was it that had told them they didn't deserve warmth? Who was it still, that made so many believe warmth was beyond their grasp?
There is nowhere for us to go home to - and even if that was the lands we cling to in the songs of remembrance... those lands are gone now, too.
They spin their fingers beneath the water. It eddies under their hand, carrying a swirl of sediment and tiny fragments of water-plants with it. It had awed them, once - and in no small way, it still did. How, under the right conditions, one small, swift, confident movement could drag so much after it, whether it liked being dragged or not.
We are more strong than mountains,
more graceful than the maple.
One small, swift, confident movement.
Our power lies within.
Like whispers.
Like wishes.
Like magic.
We are a river.
Hide and Seek
The walk to the Weiss manor is always silent. There typically aren’t guests, after all. This is a thing Muse has always done alone. No point in changing that now.
Their feet scuff over the cracked cobbles of the courtyard. The hedgerows stand at silent attention. In the long afternoon light, their shadows sprawl long and black, casting a spider’s web of darkness over the unkempt gardens. Maybe they’d been buried under one of those beds, all this time. Maybe they’d been tucked under floorboards – it wasn’t as if Muse could have smelled the decay. Or maybe they had been thrown onto the lawn and left for the beasts.
Muse hadn’t asked. They still weren’t sure they wanted to know.
where are we? what the hell is going on?
the dust has only just begun to form
crop circles in the carpet,
sinking feeling
They circle the grounds on slow, ponderous feet. The First Mistress had picked out every single paving stone herself. She’d selected every stone and statue that lined every garden bed, and the First Master had let her. She needed a touch of home, he’d said, to feel more comfortable. It would help make sure she was happy.
Muse had watched with interested eyes as the workers laid each stone. Even then, they had already been making plans. Blending colors and textures in their head to accentuate the stone without disguising it. The Master and Mistress had their own ideas, of course, and Muse obeyed, incorporating their designs in with their own. They knew every single crack in every single statue, every crevice in every flagstone. More than anywhere else, thishad been their domain.
spin me around again and rub my eyes
this can't be happening
when busy streets amass with people
would stop to hold their heads, heavy
The Second Master had grown up running back and forth across the same pavestones his mother had ordered to be laid. He’d played in and around the bushes, learned to climb on the surfaces of the statues, learned to read under the shade of the bushes and trees. He’d often studied in any number of the gazebos, his calm, clear eyes bent studiously over his books.
The Second Lady, when she finally came to live at the manor, rarely set foot outside it. When she did, she could be found under the same shades, with her hand in her husband’s arm. Her storm-grey eyes had always slid coldly over the beds, as if nothing about them could please her. But still Muse had memorized every speck of soil, every blade of grass, every plant in and around the gardens, building them more lush and bright with every passing year.
hide and seek
trains and sewing machines
all those years
they were here first
They finish their loop of the grounds and climb the stairs, step by step. They study the moss that slicks the stone, as familiar to them as the wear marks etched into their own palms. Then they push the door open, listening to the familiar creak. It hasn’t always made that noise. It didn’t, when the boys were young – they ran through it full tilt often enough that Muse would have heard it. Now it sags, its hinges barely enough to hold its own rotting, waterlogged weight.
It took much longer to learn the inside of the house. They hadn’t had as much time with it as they’d had with the grounds. Still, when they’d finally stepped inside, they had wasted no time in committing every thread of every carpet and tapestry to memory. They’d run their hands along the balustrades, memorizing every curve of every carving. The cracked and pitted faces of the paintings on the walls glowered down at them, their expressions full of a condemnation that had frightened them, once.
Not any more.
oily marks appear on walls
where pleasure moments hung before
the takeover, the sweeping insensitivity
of this still life
They pass through room after room, each one blurring into the next. The living room, where a fire had burned mere months ago amidst the old ashes. The kitchen, recently scrubbed, now sinking back into a languid recline of dust and rust. The bedrooms, their windows half-repaired and half covered in tarps, carving each room half in shadow and half in light. The closets overturned for linens and clothes, anything that had survived enough to fit the person who’d come home to find them.
What else had he expected to find?
Did it matter, now?
hide and seek
trains and sewing machines
(oh, you won't catch me around here.)
blood and tears
they were here first
They step into the solarium. Dark wood rises in delicate archways around them. Two stories of windows overlook the gardens - gardens that couldn’t have been seen for all the diffusion of light through the frosted glass. There were instruments here, once, they supposed, and seats along the upper balcony to watch whoever was performing. Seats on the floor to watch, to play, to talk – but never once to glance behind them, never even able to look out into the world Muse had spent decades building for them.
Outside, the sun is finally beginning to set. Its orange light coats the remaining glass in a wash of light like captured flames. Muse watches it dance for a long, long while. Then they cross to the center of the solarium and sit cross-legged amidst the wreckage. They rest both hands on the warped wooden floorboards and lift their head up towards the frosted glass ceiling, glowing as brightly as the sun itself. And they begin to sing.
what’d you say? that you only meant well?
well, of course you did.
what’d you say? that it's all for the best?
of course it is.
what’d you say? that it's just what we need?
you decided this?
what’d you say?
what did she say?
Green sparks spread into the floorboards and sink away from Muse’s hands. They cascade down and down, through the stone foundation of the house, into the earth below. Muse can feel it humming against their fingers, slow and sluggish at first, then quicker. Brighter. The land here has grown sluggish, crushed into hibernation under uncountable tons of wood and glass and stone. Now, finally, they are stirring to life once again.
Muse does not have muscles to ache. They do not have vocal chords to grow tired. They simply lock their joints and sing. And deep beneath the earth, below them, around them, the ground stirs. It shifts. It breathes like a living thing. The minutes stretch into hours, but they have lost all concept of time. Their attention follows every individual spark of green as it hunts, and finds, and nurtures, and coaxes, until the soil vibrates like something caged, pushing against its bars with all its strength.
ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs
speak, no feeling. no, I don't believe you.
you don't care a bit. you don't care a bit.
The movement is subtle, at first. Slender tendrils of green lift from between the floorboards. They curl upward, seeking the air, swaying in a joyful, desperate dance. Their pace can be measured in mere centimeters, but bit by bit, they grow. Long into the night, the laboring threads of life pull themselves up through every single crevice they can find, drawn by the haze of light waiting for them up above.
A mist of green rises from the manor’s paved floor and from the garden earth surrounding it, shot through with crackling sparks of light. Glittering green magic arcs up the lengths of every new shoot and vines. The foundation twists, and groans, and cracks under the weight of the life burgeoning up from beneath it. And still Muse sings, as thickening stems peel the floorboards back. As vines twist up the walls and balconies. As glass shatters against the unrelenting press of branches, as moss and grass boil over the spaces once filled by carpets and tapestries, as the pavestones are lifted and thrown aside by the upswell of roots beneath them.
(hide and seek)
ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs
(hide and seek)
speak, no feeling. no, I don't believe you.
you don't care a bit. you don't care a bit.
As the first light of dawn peeks over the horizon, Muse’s voice falters, and finally fades. They draw their hands into their lap and turn their head slowly to take in the view. The dark wood of the solarium is now covered in a mat of green. Shattered glass litters the ground in a glittering carpet only half-subsumed by grass. And finally, finally, they can see through the windows, to the gardens outside.
They rise to their feet and step out through a blasted window. The gardens have run rampant. Flowers burst from every bed, winding over every surface. Statues lie in ruins, burst from the pressure of roots growing from their cracks. The trellises of roses they erected mere months ago have overgrown the haphazard contraptions that once contained them and hauled their ponderous, verdant weight up the sides of the manor itself. Windows hang ajar, leaves and vines spilling from their mouths. And from the hole in the roof, once desperately tarped over to keep out the rain, they can see the fresh, new branches of what will someday be a mighty oak.
They give the house one long, final look. Then they turn away and begin the long, slow walk back to the carriage.
Back to the train station.
Back home.
(hide and seek)
no, no. you don’t care a bit.
no, no. you don’t care a bit.
(hide and seek)
no, no. you don’t care a bit.
you don't care a bit. you don’t care a
Words
Words were the foundation of worlds.
Muse had thought that, once, more than a decade ago, when they had first seen the walls of their family’s home lined with books. Words must be a thing that built empires. And even though it had never been their place to learn them, well…they had already broken the first rule. They had come inside the house. What was one more rule, after that?
They'd hunted for weeks. Patient fingers had trailed over countless pages of thick-lined text. They hadn't known the difference, then, between Common and Elvish and Dwarven. All they'd seen was heavy lines and strange symbols. They looked nothing like the sigils Betua had taught them. But if Muse could learn those, then surely, surely this couldn't be beyond their reach.
They'd found the primers almost by accident. The lock on the desk in the study had held fast, but the wood was beginning to rot. The drawer practically came apart in their hands. Inside of it had been a treasure trove - simple books with simple pictures, easy enough for even a slow, ponderous creature like Muse to follow. Easy enough that they felt confident carrying them away to the corner they had claimed as their own.
Some of the books were easier than others. Betua had taught them two languages, after all. Muse had learned to spell both our in the runic swirls Betua had taught them. But when they'd begun to sound out the words in the primers, they had realized how similar they were. Sylvan had slid into Elven in a matter of years. And once Elven had put down its shallow, fresh roots in Muse's mind, Common had been quick enough to follow.
The cookbooks had come next. Instructions had always been easy to follow. They were always specific. Precise. There was room to modify, Muse learned later - room to experiment, to explore, to improve. But in the beginning, when they'd had to return to the primers for every other word, those books had been a window to a world Muse had only ever imagined.
They had never made much progress into the more complicated books on their family’s shelves. There had been some fairy tales and short stories they'd made it through well enough. The prayer books to Fodla had kept them occupied for months - they'd gone meticulously over every page, copying each ritual and rite until they were memorized. But even ten years on, there were books that were still beyond them. Words their simple mind struggled to comprehend. Words that had built empires, but had never once belonged to them.
Was that where their contract lay? The records they'd never suspected they should have? The proof they should exist to begin with?
Words were the foundation of worlds. Muse had thought that, once, more than a decade ago. But the words that had founded their world were missing.
If they had ever existed at all.
Simple
It had all seemed so simple.
The young masters were playing a game under the kitchen window. They crept closer and closer, their footsteps crunching across the dry grass. They must have thought themselves masters of stealth, in the way only cubs could - with hurried whispers and muffled giggles they were sure no one could hear.
They were heard, of course. The cooks would glance toward the window, smiling or frowning at every sound. They'd wait until the last possible instant, when the footsteps stopped beneath the sill, when a small hand reached up over a tray of cooling pastries. Then one would bark a sharp word in one language or another, and the cubs would tumble away from the window in a fit of laughter. They'd scamper back into the bushes, hiding themselves with much to-do. And then the game would begin all over again.
The sun had already set, that day. It would still be several hours before the dinner bell, but this close to winter, twilight already held the estate in its shadowy grip. The boys ducked in and out of the darkness, enamored just as much with scaring each other as with their attempted heist. And Muse sat crouched, masked in the shadows of a hedgerow, watching. Waiting. Planning.
A quick breath of wind and flower petals through the open window had been enough to distract the cooks. They'd snagged two pastries off the sill and pressed their back against the wall, listening for any sign they had been noticed. When no alarm was raised, they slipped away along the side of the manor, satisfaction sitting warm in their chest.
It had seemed so simple.
The boys had come racing around the corner of the manor, Big Son chasing Small Son, his hands curled into false claws. Small Son, running full-tilt, had caught his toe on the edge of a raised garden bed. And Muse had leapt out of a shadow, catching him by the scruff before he fell, their stolen pastries forgotten.
The boys went shock-still. Even in the dim light of dusk, Muse saw the color drain from their faces and their eyes go wide as mushroom caps. And half a heartbeat later, Small Son began to scream.
They were surrounded in a matter of seconds. Small Son's fear had sent Big Son into hysterics, too. By the time the Mistri and New Mistress arrived, there was no consoling either of them. The uproar of crying and shouting was overwhelming, and Muse had already shrunk down to the grass, pressing their hands flat over their ears - but nothing could drown out the voices that cracked over them like a physical blow.
"Bad enough they sneak around the windows instead of working, but theft, now, too?
"And laying hands on the boys! I swear, they get worse by the year."
"Adair Bélanger Weiss, what did that relic of yours do to my children?"
The Mistress was already glaring at them, her grey eyes full of thunder. And when the Mistri's pale, clear eyes turned toward them, the ice in them made the world drop out from underneath Muse's feet.
"Servant's door, Muse. Now."
It had seemed so simple. A stern word, a locked door, and the family had disappeared - into the house, into the past, into a fading, watecolor memory.
…Until now.
Inches
The house looks worse, somehow.
It isn't. Not really. Muse has been back and forth a few times now, bringing canvas tarps and tools to cover broken windows and temporarily patch holes in the roof. Nothing of significance has changed since they were last here. But they could swear that every time they return, the house has decayed even more than before. It looks even gloomier here in the dark before dawn, lit only by the shadows from Muse’s lantern, slouched against the land like some great beast in slumber.
They rest a hand against the great wooden door and stare for a long while at the cracks and dry rot in its carved surface. Its repair is beyond them, for the moment. So is the repair of the crumbling, moss-covered steps leading up to the entry and the statues that flank it. But that will come in time.
They step inside the foyer. The ghosts of paintings stare back from the walls and ceilings. And they have seen paintings, now. Paintings that have been cared for, whether on canvas or directly on walls, as these have been. They can picture the vibrancy these colors must have held, once, when they were new. When the house was still full of servants to clean and maintain them. When the walls were still full of life. Now they are faded and cracked. The gaunt, pale pits of their faces send a chill down Muse's spine, one they have never felt before. Maybe it would have been easier, if they had never seen the art that lives in the homes of city folk. Then they wouldn't know so keenly that something here was wrong.
Muse glides through the foyer and into the corridors. Their fingers trail delicately over splintered wood paneling and flaking plaster and paint. They creep into each room, checking closets and furniture and a hundred other items they have checked a million times before. They have catalogued the disrepair more times than they can count. But this time, for the first time, they can do more than simply catalogue.
The first thing they pick up is a shattered porcelain bowl. Its delicate paint, flaked off from years of exposure and disuse, will never be the same. But a wash of gold sparks covers it, and it is only a matter of moments before the scattered pieces fuse back into a whole. Muse holds the bowl up to eye-level, checking it over for signs of any additional flaws. Then they set it gently down atop the ancient, cracked chest of drawers it must have fallen from, and back away, already searching for more.
They float through the house like a glittering wraith of metal and moonshadow. Their head swings back and forth as they search, as if scenting the air for more. Small tears in curtains and drapes find themselves stitched back together. Small cracks in mirrors disappear, leaving their surfaces unmarred once again. Dented servingware, cracked cookware, rotted and snapped legs of tables and chairs - Muse finds each one in turn and runs their hands over them, and in a shower of gold sparks, they are whole.
The windows are next. Gold lights flash from the upstairs rooms, one after the other, brilliant points of light in the pre-dawn haze of blue. There are delicate etchings and spirals in the glass that Muse cannot repair, but fusing the worst of the damage, to keep the worst of the weather from getting in more than it already has…for now, that will be enough.
Each individual pane of glass requires casting their spell anew. It isn’t long before Muse feels their shoulders and head growing heavy from the effort. Each wave of sparks takes longer to appear. Each new effort feels like pushing a boulder more than it does throwing a pebble. These simple magics, the magics they thought could be used at a whim…maybe there is a limit to even those. But that will be alright. They will rest when it is over. But they cannot stop. Not yet.
They only make it through a few rooms before white pressure explodes behind their eyes. They stop and plant a hand against one wall, their fingers nearly scratching off the delicate layers of paint and plaster. They bring their other hand to their helm and fall very still until the pain recedes. Only once they are sure they can move without falling do they look up again.
The light of the rising sun filters through a half-repaired window. Some of the panes are still shattered, and the frame itself is weathered, eaten through by termites and any other number of pests. But two of the panes glint in the golden light of morning, fully repaired.
Muse turns away. Each step drives another white-hot knife through their pounding head. By the time they reach the great entry door, they have to lean heavily on their staff just to stand. And the work is not done. The work is not anywhere near done. They will have to return another day, when it doesn’t hurt just to think. But even now, even under the nausea that keeps threatening to knock them off their feet, something else is beginning to boil.
They would not have learned this magic if they had stayed at home. And the house would be worse off for it. If this pain is any indication, they are still not good enough. They can only measure their progress in inches. But inches are better than never moving forward at all.
Momentum
The walls of the workroom are already ringed with shelves. The tallest of them is high enough for Nita to reach on a stepstool, but only comes to Muse’s waist. The walls above that are blank - too high up to be practical for the smaller residents of the Meadows on any normal day.
Nita has a selection of small hand tools, enough to perform simple repairs around the home. More than enough to hang the floating shelves Muse has collected over the last few months. They are simple things, made of sealed but unfinished wood - made for function, not beauty. Still, once they are hung, the striking contrast of them against the plainer shelves below makes Muse sit back on their heels and stare for nearly an hour before they can continue.
The woven symbol of Rhodena that Ann gave them is the first thing to go on their shelves.
Beside it goes Peg's woven pine-needle basket, the lid propped open to let the scent of perfume fill the air. Next to that go the papers full of pressed flowers that Peg gave them weeks before, arranged delicately so that each one is fully visible and cannot be dislodged by a stray gust from the door. After that go all of Fix's drawings, one after another, tacked along the edges of the shelves so that they hang down, unrolled in their full, scribbly glory.
The next shelf is lower and a great deal broader, with an odd hole in the side where a knothole was punched out of it. Through this they hang the lacy black and white parasol Vera gave them. They loop Cardinal's gift, the carved fox pendant, around the handle of the parasol, where the light makes its surface glint. They fold their coats up one at a time and lay them gently on the shelf. Atop these they rest and the delicate knitted shawl, all in the shapes of autumn leaves, that Nita so lovingly crafted. On top of that goes Schatzi's hat, the crimson fabric a perfect match for the crimson of their nicest coat.
The next hour is spent with the pile of items shoved into the corners of the room. They are no longer taking up space just inside of Nita's front door, at least. Still, they are disorganized, half in and half out of their traveling backpack. And Muse is going to need the space to work.
They pull each item out and inspect it for signs of damage or disrepair. Then they find a place for it, either on the shelves or in the cupboards that line the workbench against the wall of the room. Most of the existing shelves are already full of reagents, solvents, and bundles of drying herbs, but now the spaces between are filled in with bundles of twine, stacks of charcoal and chalk, a pile of unused notebooks, and everything else Muse has bought or carried with them in the time since they left their home.
The books are last. These go on a narrow shelf inside the workbench, behind one of the cabinet doors. Notebooks filled with their own crude sketches and spidery notes take up the lefthand side. On the right are a collection of children's primers for common and elven that must be more than twenty years old. Stacked in the bottom of the cupboard are a few cookbooks that are even older, some written in common, most in an archaic form of elven, all yellowed and falling apart from age and exposure. And on top of these rests a tarnished silver spoon, the handle engraved with the Weiss family arms.
The last of their birthday gifts sits on top of the workbench. It waits until Muse is finished arranging everything else in the room. Only once that is done does Muse set their herbalism kit on the bench. They sit on the stool and open their kit, checking its contents over carefully. Victor's assessment had been remarkably accurate - they were running low on supplies. And they were going to need plenty more supplies before they were finished here.
They lay out a series of glass vials, freshly bought at the market. Then they set a heavy tome on the workbench beside their kit. Nita had said it was a collection of all of her mother's notes - everything she had learned in her days of potion and poultice-brewing. There is more information here than they can possibly use just yet. But it is a perfect place to start.
They look around the room again - the room they should not have, full of gifts from friends they should not have, granted to them by a family they should not have. And the urge to step outside is strong. They could walk out into the thicket and just…stop thinking for a while. Just let the pure, wild sensation of being close to the land course through them and forget, if only for a little bit.
...The scene in the Skybound returns with the clarity of a lightning-bolt. The blood and tears on every shirt. The exhaustion behind every set of eyes. The desperate relief of having lived on every face.
Muse flips the heavy tome open and runs a slender metal finger down the index. The handwriting reminds them of Nita's - rounded and coiling, with a slight tilt to the right. And just like Nita's notes, Entoloma's are clear and concise, easy to understand, with a hint of wry humor running underneath, encouraging the reader that this can, in fact, be done.
With this, they can do better. And no one will have to look up at them with their exhausted eyes and pretend they are not hurt ever again.
(dis)comfort
By the time Muse reaches the Meadows, their head is spinning. Josiah seems concerned, but they distract him with chores and a new game around the greenhouse. It is enough to take his attention away. Enough to allow them the freedom to slip outside, if not unnoticed, at least without being stopped.
The cloak about their shoulders slides from grey to brown to green. Muse grips it tightly and considers tearing it loose. Instead they draw it more tightly around themself as they stalk through the trees. Their head feels heavy. Sound rings back and forth against the inside of their skull, rattling the delicate plates in their ears as if someone had boxed them.
It certainly hadn't felt *right,* to be in a place of learning. But there had been so many intriguing things to see and interesting speeches to listen to. They'd understood less than half of what they'd heard. But spending time with their friends, listening to the ideas, learning something new…it had felt important.
And where had it ended? Their friends upset, scattering in every direction. Because they had continued asking questions. Because they had thought it might be important. Because they had tried to put their fingers in where they didn't belong.
The motions are effortless, born from years of practice. Find a dense cluster of brushes. Weave the sturdiest branches together at the base. Feed in smaller twigs and deadfall to create a semi-solid wall of foliage, thick enough to obscure anything hidden within it, but well-covered enough to look natural from the outside. Easier to hide from predators, this way. Harder to be found.
They pull their coat of soft, grey wool free and slide it carefully under the cluster of bushes. After it goes the cloak, now rippling in an agitated swirl of green. Then they turn their gaze up toward the sky. For a long while, the only sound is the sound of their own joints, creaking faintly in the chill.
No more questions, then. No more interjections. Even being present had caused a problem, and confirming they'd been present, confirming they'd seen anything at all, had only made it worse. Maelie was upset at being forced to endure something she hadn't wanted to speak on at all. Cardinal was upset because of Maelie. Peg was upset because of what had happened to Vera. And it had all come to light because Muse had selfishly wanted to talk about what they'd seen. Why had they thought it appropriate to speak? They knew better. Their responsibility was to be silent. When had they allowed that to change?
They sink down to their knees. The metal plates of their body shift and slide, and they shudder for a moment, elation warring with a sick feeling in the pit of their stomach. Even this might be too much. They had worked so hard for it, they had wanted it more than anything, but how long would it be until they did even this in the wrong place, at the wrong time? How long until this, too, chased someone away from them? How long until they chased everyone away?
The metal fox's forepaws touch down on the cold soil. Muse shakes themself from ears to tail, plates clicking faintly as they settle into the new form. Then they crawl into the hollow space they have built within the center of the bushes. They nose themself under the coat and mantle, now the size of a massive set of blankets. The mantle spins through a myriad of greens and browns. It settles into the color of mottled leaf-shadow, disguising them even further from the world outside. And though the shape is different and the tricks are different, this, at least, is familiar. The whisper of the wind. The smell of frost. The cold nipping at the edges of their body. And the sense of stillness pushing down on their shoulders, settling them into the ground, reminding them where it is they belong.
Pretender
<Well?>
Muse pauses on their way through the house. Betua sits in the middle of the hall, her tail curled around her feet. Light spills over her shoulders from the kitchen beyond, sketching a black silhouette lit only by the flat green disks of her eyes. She barely sits as high as Muse's shin, but her presence feels large enough to fill the entire hall.
<Are you ready to say it yet?>
Muse tilts their head and says nothing. Betua's fur bristles. <Don't give me that look. You can be stubborn with your mother bear all you want, but it won't work on me. You were my cub first.>
~ Do you wander through this life
Like a child without a care?
Do you fear the things you love?
Do you seek the things you fear? ~
Their gaze drops to the floor. They feel a soft brush like fur or feathers against their mind, taking the sting off the words. The sensation is as familiar as the sound of their own footsteps. It is a sensation that followed them long before Betua ever deigned to show herself in a physical form. It was the first whisper of the forest's song, the first touch of familiarity and warmth, the first sense of belonging Muse had felt since they'd set foot beyond their family’s walls. Even after decades, that whisper still felt exactly the same.
<You're still the same, too.> Betua's voice is muted. <That's the problem.>
~ When the world comes crashing down
Do you just smile and say… ~
Muse turns away from the kitchen. Betua's claws click along the hardwood floor as she follows them out into the sitting room. The sound of voices wafting in from the conservatory gives them pause. Nita, Josiah, and Erasmus are still talking. If Muse leaves that way, they will surely be noticed. The greenhouse likely isn't safe, either. They turn to the front door--and Betua is already seated in the foyer, her eyes gleaming in the dimmed light.
<Try again.>
A soft hiss builds in Muse's throat. The eyes drilling into them are not unkind, but they are immobile, as if carved from jade. And nothing hides from those eyes. Not when they have lived within Muse's mind longer than they have lived without.
~ I am the Great Pretender
Willing to dream forever
Oh, I'll just float away and let the waves
Keep pulling me in
I'll just hang out here and watch the world
Pass over my head
Because I still believe in
All of the things you said
Oh, all of the things you said ~
They trudge back toward the kitchen, the hiss still building in their throat. The slow click of claws across the floor makes their skull itch. They want to shred every piece of clothing they own. Want to dash out into the woods and bury themself in a thicket until morning. But if Nita were to return and see the food unattended, left to burn in the oven…well. Muse does not have another good excuse for missing a meal, let alone ruining one.
They stare at the cleaned fish that remain on the counter. The work is mostly done. All they need to do now is fillet them and get them cooked. But even that feels like an insurmountable task under the weight of the eyes resting heavy on the backs of their shoulders.
<Do you want to know the real reason you can't fly yet, my stubborn cub?>
~ Well, are you searching for the truth
But all you come across is lies?
Did someone sabotage your route,
left all the answers in disguise? ~
Muse's shoulders tense. They pick up their knife and return to the fish with single-minded intensity. Fillet them, skin them, debone them. The fillets go straight into a baking dish. Salt and pepper to season, with a rich mustard cream over the top and a sprinkling of dill to bake into the sauce. It will be light and flavorful, not so heavy that it might curdle the stomach. Maybe there are enough vegetables in the pantry to roast for a side as well, so that their new guest has something they can enjoy, too.
And all the while, Betua's weight grows heavier and heavier in their mind. But the answer is obvious. Why is there any need to ask?
~ When the world comes crashing down
Do you just smile and say… ~
Muse steps around Betua and moves to the pantry. There are too many things to focus on. They will need to chop vegetables. They will probably taste fine roasted in the rest of the mustard sauce. They will need to begin planning more efficiently, to make sure there are dishes without meat available for every meal. If the house keeps growing, louder and brighter and full of more life, they might need to help their golem friend replace their arms after all. Maybe teach Josiah to cook as well. Maybe Erasmus knows a thing or two about preparing food, and can give them some insight on what he likes. And of course Nita is always happy to help when needed, and…
They gather what they need from the pantry and begin to chop. Retrieve a second baking dish. Betua always seems to want their attention when they are busy.
Betua snorts. <Busy. You were about to run naked into the thicket again and leave all this behind. What are you going to do this evening when you aren’t busy any more and I still won’t let you run away?>
~ I am the Great Pretender
Willing to dream forever
Oh, I'll just float away and let the waves
Keep pulling me in
I'll just hang out here and watch the world
Pass over my head
Because I still believe in
All of the things you said ~
An image springs unbidden to Muse’s mind, so strong it nearly knocks them off their feet. It is spring, and the world is beginning to bloom. They are crouched in a hollow, distress humming through their body. Near the edge of the stream lies a young buck. Its leg is bloodied and torn. They have seen this before, hundreds and thousands of times before--it is the way of the world. But it isn’t any easier to watch, even for it being the truth.
<You dream so deeply.> Betua's voice in the present is gentle but unrelenting. <You watch, and you wonder, and you wish with every single ounce of your soul. But hope doesn't hunt for you.>
A brush against of the inside of their mind, like feathers, like fur. In the memory, in the past, it urges them forward. The buck starts and shies away from them, but they are slow, cautious, gentle. They lay their hand on the buck’s side, and…what? Do what? It has never worked before. They have tried, hundreds and thousands of times, and it has never worked. They aren’t even entirely sure what they are trying. All they know is that it burns against the inside of their chest like a wildfire, sparking brighter every second, straining to get free.
They almost scream when sparks of gold light explode from their hands. They scramble away from the buck as it leaps to its feet, bleating a blend of terror and rage. It bounds away down the stream and around the bend. Only once it is gone does Muse realize there is no further blood on the bank--that while the deer’s fur is still matted with red, the wound itself has closed.
<And what is different now, from then?> comes Betua’s calm, implacable voice. <What has changed?>
~ Why do I try?
Oh, why do I try?
Yeah, why do I try? ~
Muse shakes their head, almost imperceptibly. The only thing that has changed is them. They are older now, by dozens of winters. If it wasn’t meant to be then, when the magic first came to them, why would it be possible now? And if it isn't possible, why waste any more time wanting it?
<You can’t even admit that you’re jealous.> There is both a huff and a laugh. <You love your Nita and your Marzanna, but you envy them. If it turns out your Josiah and your Erasmus can do the same, you’ll envy them, too. Do I have to teach you all of your feelings, or will you eventually just let yourself feel them?>
~ I am the Great Pretender
Willing to dream forever
I said I am the Great, I am the Great
I am the Great Pretender
But oh, I'll just float away and let the waves
Keep pulling me in
I'll just hang out here and watch the world
Pass over my head
Because I still believe in
All of the things you said ~
The knife hits the cutting board with a little more force than necessary. Muse stares at the half-chopped carrot, perfectly still. If they take much more time, the others will begin to grow worried. They will come and check, and if they notice the tension in their limbs, if they see the way they shift back and forth, as if their own metal burns, too warm, too close…
They snatch the knife up and drive it point-down into the cutting board. It hits with a heavy, satisfying thud, burying itself half an inch into the wood, and for a moment, the wave of perverse pride feels a little like they imagine flying must.
It is followed almost immediately by a wave of guilt. They struggle with the knife for a moment, a faint whine rising in their throat. The hairline fracture down the center of the cutting board widens a little more with every new attempt, but while the blade shifts back and forth, it does not budge.
<So you remember how to be angry, after all.>
The whine slides down into a low hiss. Muse pushes the cutting board and knife both into the sink and turns to glower at Betua. The red fox sits unperturbed in the entryway to the kitchen, her green eyes as unreadable as ever.
<It's a start. Keep at it, stubborn little cub. Maybe you'll remember how to want things again, too. You'll never be able to fly until you let yourself. The only thing stopping you is you.>
~ I say, I am the Great Pretender
Yeah, you know that I am the Great Pretender
Yeah, you know what I'm saying is I still believe in
All of the things you said
Oh, all of the things you said. ~
White
It should have been acacia.
Muse stares into the fire, watching it flicker and dance in the hearth. The flames are beginning to fall low. They will need to add more wood to keep it burning until morning, but they can't convince themself to back away from its inviting glow just yet.
Most of the guests are still asleep. Nita has been up and down, checking on them, making sure they are still warm. She has checked on Muse as well, but Muse has been silent, their attention fixed on the fire. Its low, swirling flicker is hypnotic. But not as hypnotic as the swirl of white skirts had been, a brilliant burst of movement as it vanished into the dark.
Muse gives their head a slight jerk and turns away from the fireplace. They take a few logs from the pile and add them to the fire. Snap some twigs loose for kindling. Arrange them carefully, stacking them so the fire has room to breathe and stretch. Then they settle at the edge of the hearth again, leaning forward slightly, their knees drawn up to their chest.
The night had been cold, but the blankets had staved off the worst of winter's bite. The air had been full of the scent of woodsmoke and pastries. Full of murmured voices, of conversation, of laughter. Full of a warmth deeper than any the rays of the sun could provide. And into that warmth had stepped a beacon of white, and and for a moment, the rest of the world had vanished.
Marzanna had spoken of nobility. Responsibility. Tradition. These were words Muse had heard hundreds of times before, from more people than they had ever thought they would know. But they had only been words. Not this image of duty and love made manifest, far greater than Muse's humble work could ever aspire to. So why, knowing the vast difference between those worlds, had they not given her acacia? Why had it been a rose?
Muse scrapes at the fire with their poker, sweeping the ashes out from underneath the stack of wood. They feed a little more kindling in and stack another log atop the pile. The fire breathes and swells upward, its light casting a flicker of shadow across their unmoving visor.
Weird, she had said. Such a beautiful thing, considered weird. But it suited her perfectly. A woman who had gone to a ball as a snow leopard in a tiara, who ran a store full of delicate teas and once-dangerous pets, who raised domestic and deadly animals both, whose grace and groundedness seemed too large to exist in the same body at once. Marzanna had been elegant and uncertain. Open, but guarded. And Muse should have given her a sprig of white acacia, just like all the others, except…
Not long ago, Muse had spent a full day poring over the books Nita owned on the languages of flowers. While they had yet to memorize everything, some symbols were too obvious to forget. Still, even still, despite their best intentions, when they opened their hand, they had found single white rose. They'd considered throwing it away. Considered stopping there, backing off before they made a fool of themself. But Marzanna had put herself before them all wearing little except her own devotion. Would it have been fair for Muse not to do the same?
They reach up to their face. Hesitate. Pull their visor off completely and set it to the side of the hearth. They run their fingers down the contours of their face, then scrub at it with both hands. But despite their best efforts to warm themself, the spot of buzzing warmth against their forehead refuses to fade.
Roses, then. Muse lets out a huff and secures their visor over their face once more. They glance at the clock on the mantle as it counts out the hours until dawn. And they tend the hearth - careful, patient, nurturing its warmth, making sure it has all the room it needs to grow.
Blessings
CW: Emotional manipulation
It is a blessing, say the whispers of the family, to have a home at all.
Muse pulls their coat more tightly around their body. The slush crunches beneath their feet as they trudge down the pavement. The sky is slate-grey, and the wind bites at the seams between their joints, and for the first time in what feels like a very long time, Muse acknowledges they are beginning to shiver.
Has the wind always been this cold? Surely it hasn’t. After all, Muse has lived through any number of winters. They have slept through snowstorms, curled up in thickets that bowed and groaned with the weight of the white powder crushing them. They have walked across snow-covered fields that felt half as chilly as the ground beneath their feet now. They have watched snow gather on their shoulders, shaken icicles free of their antlers, wiped feathers of frost from their own arms and hands. They have seen small creatures dig dens, seen larger ones find caves to shelter in, have copied both when needed. And never once, they are sure, have they felt this cold.
"Absolutely not." The voice is a woman's, steady, cool, but not unkind. Muse remembers black hair and black eyes with a glint that could make wolves cower. "It's for your own good."
The bread inside the basket on their arm has also gone cold. It will need to be re-warmed for a while in the oven. The smell of baking bread is the same, at least. So is the heat radiating from the oven. Yet they are also different, felt and smelled from inside the kitchen instead of through windows and heavy brick walls.
"They say you lose your ability to withstand the cold if you spend too long indoors." A man's voice, this time. Muse recalls brown hair and eyes so pale a blue the sky would be envious. "Who will be able take care of the land then?"
Muse feels another shiver coming. They force their shoulders to remain still. If they keep their head down, if they focus on the icy daggers stabbing up each ankle as they walk, maybe they can stave it off. Their feet had been numb, once. How had they let this happen?
"We don't have the same gifts you do." Another woman. Younger. She is the one who answers the servant's door now, now that Father and Mother are Grandfather and Grandmother. This new Mother has hair the color of dry grass in autumn, eyes as grey as a winter sky. "You're stronger than we are. And you love your home, don't you?"
The path is familiar enough now that Muse's feet find it automatically. A sharp turn past the temple of Rhodena, toward the trees that rise like a bulwark to block the wind. Down the cobbled road. Off into the snow as they approach the Meadows, towards the conservatory. Their steps slow, bit by bit, until finally they stop within arm's reach of the door.
"You care so deeply about this house." Child, who is now Parent, with Grandmother's black hair and Grandfather's cold, clear eyes. New Mother stands away from the door, holding Small Son in her arms, with Big Son clinging to her skirts. Both are crying. "I know you want to take care of it, and us. But you have to understand what you're doing to this family, and to yourself."
…Muse is shivering again.
They shake themselves hard and set the basket down outside the conservatory door. Off comes the shimmering cloak Nita so kindly gifted them. Off comes the coat Aeos helped them pick out. Off comes the star Sephira’s acolytes gave them during the midwinter festivals, the star they still keep tied around one antler. All of these items find themselves bundled up and shoved into the basket. Then they break into a long, ground-eating lope. Their stride carries them along the side of the Meadows, their posture sinking lower and lower. By the time they hit the line of trees, they are running on all fours.
Maybe they will be back in the evening. Maybe they will not be back until tomorrow morning. Even they aren't sure yet. But their family is right. If they cannot even withstand the cold, they cannot withstand anything else that might threaten their home. They will have to work harder, build up their strength all over again. And why did they need to enter the house? Why had they wanted to? Why had they ever let themselves in, when it was clear how much doing so had made things change?
You must not come inside this house, the family's voices whisper down through the years, until the overlapping echo of them is all Muse can hear. It is blessing enough that you have a home at all.
Penance
The Meadows’ kitchen is warm and gold and full of light.
Muse’s hands pause over the stove. There are vegetables simmering in a hearty broth, and if Muse could smell, they are sure it would smell delicious. Betua certainly seems to think so. She has wandered into the kitchen several times already, her nose high in the air, and each time, Muse has had to gently shoo her out.
Still, it isn’t just the smell of food that keeps luring Betua in. Her insistent presence is a reminder of the niggling feeling Muse has been trying to shoo away, as well. From the smug sensation plucking at the edges of their awareness, they are sure Betua knows it.
They slip out of the kitchen as quietly as metal feet can carry them. They glide to their collection of odds and ends, piled in a slowly-growing tumble behind the coat rack near the front door. From these they pull a small, simple basket, no bigger than the palm of their hand. They feel Betua laugh as they carry it into the kitchen, and make a mental note to either scold her or thank her later. Much as they hate to admit it, after all, she has a point. A goddess cannot be ignored forever.
Gold sparks flare at their fingertips, and berries fill their hand. Muse pours them into the basket. They cast about the countertop and, from the mix of leftover vegetables, retrieve a smallish carrot, potato, and onion. These go into the basket as well. They gaze into it for longer than they care to count, listening to the bubbling from the stove and the sounds of movement from the other room. Then they set the basket above the stove, atop a corner of a cabinet where it will, they hope, remain out of sight of the smaller inhabitants of the home.
<You know, if your Lady of Houses is anything like your books say she is, she wouldn’t want your guilt as an offering.>
Muse tilts their head. Their gaze remains fixed on the basket for a while longer. Then they return to the stove. The admonishment in Betua’s voice hangs heavy in the back of their mind. But they cannot dwell on it now. There is work to do. There is food to make, and dishes to wash, and weeding to finish, and then…
<Do you really think your love is worth less, just because you’re sending it from someone else’s home?>
But Betua cannot understand. She is a spirit of the wilds. The world itself is her home. A home like that cannot be abandoned, cannot wither, cannot be left to rot. And no goddess can punish her for failing it. No goddess can be disappointed in her for leaving it behind.
Muse closes their inner ear. They feel Betua huff, equal parts exasperation and fondness. Then there is a whisper of movement as the now-fox slides down from their perch. Her presence fades in the direction of the conservatory–likely to harass Daphne into playing with her again. And then Muse is alone with the sound of simmering food and a hollow in their chest that one small basket, one small prayer for Fodla’s forgiveness, can barely begin to fill.
Alone Again
It lasts a matter of seconds, but in those seconds, Muse sees the cracks in their future open into a chasm.
Amanita's blood is red. Just as red as any other animal's blood. It floods from her stomach the way blood flows from any other gut wound. Muse has seen this before in the remnants of prey raked open by their predators, the talons of the hawk or the teeth of the wolf. It is a terrible wound--the kind of wound that, for many long years, Muse knew of no mercy for except a quick knife to end the suffering.
But that was the wilderness. It wasn't this city of light. It was the cycle of birds and beasts--it wasn't for a thinking, laughing, dancing person.
It wasn't for Nita.
Muse will go back to the Meadows, and the house will be empty. There will be no light on in the sitting room. No singing from the conservatory. No muttering, no excited tales about new research, new findings, nothing to fill the silence. And Muse knows this silence well. They can feel it even now, filling their skull with a roaring pressure so painful they fear their head might burst. It is the heavy silence of the family's manor when they first set foot inside it. The consuming, oppressive nothing, when there should have been sound, and warmth, and light.
And Bracken? And Daphne? Muse will try to care for them, but they will not understand. They will want to see the one they love more than anyone else in the world. And Muse is not their person. Muse is not anyone's person.
And what will happen when Amanita's family returns from their travels? What will happen when they find their sister and daughter gone, and a strange, frightening metal monstrosity waiting in her place? Bad enough the empty house, but what will happen when there is no longer a house at all?
--the second passes. Quill is faster and smarter, and his potion works, and Amanita awakens, but Muse can still feel the chasm beneath them as they stagger and fall, crushing her into an embrace.
I don't want to be alone again.