FIC: Burgundy, Part 1/?
I only recently found this wonderful community, and so here I come, bearing some fic. :)
Title: Burgundy
Wordcount: 1,504
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine :(
Summary: When he's finally left alone in Lost-hope, Stephen Black is finally able to explore some of the stranger corners of Faerie, and he meets one denizen in particular who interests him.
Author's Notes: Here is my attempt at looking into the odd little nooks and crannies of Lost-hope. I hope you all like it!
On one of the early days of his enchanted time in Lost-hope, Stephen Black found himself left without the usually constant presence of the gentleman with the thistledown hair.
They had been walking through one of the innumerable dusty, winding corridors of the highest tower of Lost-Hope, with the gentleman expounding on the merits of the windows to be found at the top of the tower.
“Stephen, when you are king, I shall install windows for you in Westminster which far exceed the poor ones here. From the ones I possess, you can only see what has happened, what you did not wish to know, and what you do not wish to happen, but you shall have windows which look out upon-”* the gentleman abruptly stopped speaking and frowned. He seemed to curse in a language that Stephen did not know, and then disappeared, accompanied only by the distant sound of a door slamming.
While Stephen would, in the long months to follow, grow accustomed to the gentleman’s strange comings and goings, this first disappearance left him surprised at his sudden freedom.
He found a small window (an ordinary window, thankfully) and peered out. The immense distance above the ground at which he found himself made his stomach turn, so he turned about and attempted to retrace the path he and the gentleman had taken. After coming across several dead ends, he finally found the steep, narrow staircase leading down
During the long way down, he tried to be only mildly perturbed at the things he saw. The stone walls was festooned with all manner of odd decorations. He passed a tapestry hung on the wall that appeared to depict scenes from his own childhood, but that so differed in certain startling particulars as to make Stephen doubt his own recollections.** Several turns of the staircase later, he could not help but notice the ivy which grew on the inside wall improbably far any natural genesis, and which had also burst into bloom with flowers that looked very much like the faces of sleeping children.*** He reached out to touch one and it stirred against his touch, but did not seem to wake. After the strange ivy he noticed a figure of a raven scratched into one of the grey stones just at Stephen’s eye level. It looked extraordinarily ancient, and he reached out to touch it. As his fingers met the stone, he heard harsh cawing in his ears and a far-off voice saying words that sounded similar to the language of the curse that the gentleman with the thistledown hair has uttered earlier. Startled, he withdrew his touch and the sounds ceased. As he continued his descent, Stephen did not notice the black crow’s feather which fell on the worn stone step behind him.
After what seemed like hours but could have been days, Stephen emerged from the staircase into the great banqueting hall where the gentleman and his endless array of strange guests danced night after night. Today, however, the hall was deserted except for a few shadowy denizens in corners, and Stephen decided that the wiser course was to steer clear of them. He wandered through a few nondescript corridors and found himself at a brass-bound, oaken door he had never seen before in his few wanderings with the gentleman. He tried the handle, and, finding it unlocked, pushed it all the way open.
He found himself stepping out into a place the likes of which he had never encountered in Lost-hope. It appeared to be the courtyard around which the great house was centred, but it looked more like a great, wildly overgrown garden. It looked as if it had not been tended to in a hundred years or more, but it was still beautiful for all of that. The garden possessed the air of an utterly forgotten place, and Stephen was entranced by its sweet, sad air. Here, though, the sadness was not the oppressive weight that it was in the rest of Lost-hope, and the sky that Stephen could see above the walls was a rosy, dawn-lit pink.
All in all, it was a very pleasing respite, and he intended to enjoy it. He wandered along the narrow, nearly overgrown paths, noticing the sprays of roses which fell across his path and the lilies nodding in great, snow-white drifts. At last, he came to a clearing with a broken, crumbling fountain in the center, and upon the fountain’s edge sat a girl.
She was not the strangest or most beautiful personage that Stephen had beheld at Lost-hope, but she still warranted a second look. Her chestnut hair was piled high on her head and cascaded down in a long, long tangle of curls into which was thickly woven a continuous vine of morning-glories. The starry white flowers against her hair were lovely, but her ragged dress appeared to be made of an old dusty, dirty moss-green curtain. Its diaphanous form draped unceremoniously from her skinny shoulders, and there were several smudges of dirt on her cheek. Her feet were bare and mud-crusted, and on her arms and throat she bore innumerable scratches. Her mouth was stained a deep, dark red, almost purple.
Stephen soon realized that he was beginning to stare, and so he offered a bow.
“Madam, my name is Stephen Black. I beg your pardon for intruding.” Straightening up, he looked for a reply, and found none forthcoming. The girl just looked at him, sitting stock still. In fact, the only point distinguishing her from a well-colored statue was the rise and fall of her clavicle, proving her possession of breath. The silence stretched for several moments, until Stephen could bear it no longer and spoke again. “Madam, if I may beg the liberty, may I ask what your name is?”
The girl just shook her head, but her eyes looked so earnest that Stephen couldn’t think that she was intending to be rude. She made as if attempting to speak, but she didn’t open her mouth and all that came was a gurgling sound from deep in her throat. She shook her head again, looking mournful. Stephen was intrigued. Before he could inquire as to her identity further, however, she suddenly slid off the edge of the fountain to land swaying on the toes of her bare feet. Righting herself, she turned quickly away from Stephen and disappeared into a nearby tangle of rosebushes.
Stephen started after her, but at that moment the gentleman with the thistledown hair reappeared with the sound of a crash and a small, bright shower of mirror shards. Brushing away any spare bits of broken glass, the gentleman took Stephen’s arm. He seemed in much better spirits than formerly, and he merely frowned briefly at their surroundings and transported the two of them to another featureless stone corridor somewhere in the depths of Lost-hope.
Smiling, the gentleman said exuberantly, “Stephen, how I have missed you! The trials which I bear on your behalf are beyond measure, but I will bear them faithfully for you. When you are king, Stephen, you may find…” The gentleman continued on, but Stephen’s thoughts were with the dark-mouthed morning glory girl in the garden. He only hoped that she wouldn’t cut her unshod feet on the glittering mess of mirror shards that the gentleman had left behind.
*The gentleman would have told Stephen that his intended improved windows for Westminster included apertures that would allow the viewer to see everything that he was intended by others not to see, and everything that he ever wanted but was very unlikely to have. The first type of window was a more common enchantment, and all it tended to do was breed mistrust and break up marriages. The gentleman would have neglected to mention, however, that the second window was thought to be found in the castle of the Raven King, and that John Uskglass had forbidden anyone to look through it, as it drove the viewer mad.
**For instance, Stephen was certain that a lady dressed all in white had not followed three steps behind him all the days of his childhood, and nor had he ever possessed a cat with green eyes.
***These flowers are a very great mystery. The only place they are truly known to grow is in the strange country on the far side of Hell, and there only where things have happened that you have never heard tell of, they are so unsettling. If plucked from the vine, they will scream, and the wrists of the picker will begin to bleed with blood that does not belong to them. As to how they came to be in the tower, it was known among the aureate magicians that John Uskglass tended to a glade filled with them in that strange country on the far side of Hell. Seeds might easily have fallen from the hem of his coat and taken root on those steps, but facts pertaining to the presence of the Raven King in Lost-hope are unfounded and shaky at best. John Uskglass also may have taken a silver knife and scratched the figure of a raven into the stones of the place, but for what purpose no one can be certain.
Title: Burgundy
Wordcount: 1,504
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine :(
Summary: When he's finally left alone in Lost-hope, Stephen Black is finally able to explore some of the stranger corners of Faerie, and he meets one denizen in particular who interests him.
Author's Notes: Here is my attempt at looking into the odd little nooks and crannies of Lost-hope. I hope you all like it!
On one of the early days of his enchanted time in Lost-hope, Stephen Black found himself left without the usually constant presence of the gentleman with the thistledown hair.
They had been walking through one of the innumerable dusty, winding corridors of the highest tower of Lost-Hope, with the gentleman expounding on the merits of the windows to be found at the top of the tower.
“Stephen, when you are king, I shall install windows for you in Westminster which far exceed the poor ones here. From the ones I possess, you can only see what has happened, what you did not wish to know, and what you do not wish to happen, but you shall have windows which look out upon-”* the gentleman abruptly stopped speaking and frowned. He seemed to curse in a language that Stephen did not know, and then disappeared, accompanied only by the distant sound of a door slamming.
While Stephen would, in the long months to follow, grow accustomed to the gentleman’s strange comings and goings, this first disappearance left him surprised at his sudden freedom.
He found a small window (an ordinary window, thankfully) and peered out. The immense distance above the ground at which he found himself made his stomach turn, so he turned about and attempted to retrace the path he and the gentleman had taken. After coming across several dead ends, he finally found the steep, narrow staircase leading down
During the long way down, he tried to be only mildly perturbed at the things he saw. The stone walls was festooned with all manner of odd decorations. He passed a tapestry hung on the wall that appeared to depict scenes from his own childhood, but that so differed in certain startling particulars as to make Stephen doubt his own recollections.** Several turns of the staircase later, he could not help but notice the ivy which grew on the inside wall improbably far any natural genesis, and which had also burst into bloom with flowers that looked very much like the faces of sleeping children.*** He reached out to touch one and it stirred against his touch, but did not seem to wake. After the strange ivy he noticed a figure of a raven scratched into one of the grey stones just at Stephen’s eye level. It looked extraordinarily ancient, and he reached out to touch it. As his fingers met the stone, he heard harsh cawing in his ears and a far-off voice saying words that sounded similar to the language of the curse that the gentleman with the thistledown hair has uttered earlier. Startled, he withdrew his touch and the sounds ceased. As he continued his descent, Stephen did not notice the black crow’s feather which fell on the worn stone step behind him.
After what seemed like hours but could have been days, Stephen emerged from the staircase into the great banqueting hall where the gentleman and his endless array of strange guests danced night after night. Today, however, the hall was deserted except for a few shadowy denizens in corners, and Stephen decided that the wiser course was to steer clear of them. He wandered through a few nondescript corridors and found himself at a brass-bound, oaken door he had never seen before in his few wanderings with the gentleman. He tried the handle, and, finding it unlocked, pushed it all the way open.
He found himself stepping out into a place the likes of which he had never encountered in Lost-hope. It appeared to be the courtyard around which the great house was centred, but it looked more like a great, wildly overgrown garden. It looked as if it had not been tended to in a hundred years or more, but it was still beautiful for all of that. The garden possessed the air of an utterly forgotten place, and Stephen was entranced by its sweet, sad air. Here, though, the sadness was not the oppressive weight that it was in the rest of Lost-hope, and the sky that Stephen could see above the walls was a rosy, dawn-lit pink.
All in all, it was a very pleasing respite, and he intended to enjoy it. He wandered along the narrow, nearly overgrown paths, noticing the sprays of roses which fell across his path and the lilies nodding in great, snow-white drifts. At last, he came to a clearing with a broken, crumbling fountain in the center, and upon the fountain’s edge sat a girl.
She was not the strangest or most beautiful personage that Stephen had beheld at Lost-hope, but she still warranted a second look. Her chestnut hair was piled high on her head and cascaded down in a long, long tangle of curls into which was thickly woven a continuous vine of morning-glories. The starry white flowers against her hair were lovely, but her ragged dress appeared to be made of an old dusty, dirty moss-green curtain. Its diaphanous form draped unceremoniously from her skinny shoulders, and there were several smudges of dirt on her cheek. Her feet were bare and mud-crusted, and on her arms and throat she bore innumerable scratches. Her mouth was stained a deep, dark red, almost purple.
Stephen soon realized that he was beginning to stare, and so he offered a bow.
“Madam, my name is Stephen Black. I beg your pardon for intruding.” Straightening up, he looked for a reply, and found none forthcoming. The girl just looked at him, sitting stock still. In fact, the only point distinguishing her from a well-colored statue was the rise and fall of her clavicle, proving her possession of breath. The silence stretched for several moments, until Stephen could bear it no longer and spoke again. “Madam, if I may beg the liberty, may I ask what your name is?”
The girl just shook her head, but her eyes looked so earnest that Stephen couldn’t think that she was intending to be rude. She made as if attempting to speak, but she didn’t open her mouth and all that came was a gurgling sound from deep in her throat. She shook her head again, looking mournful. Stephen was intrigued. Before he could inquire as to her identity further, however, she suddenly slid off the edge of the fountain to land swaying on the toes of her bare feet. Righting herself, she turned quickly away from Stephen and disappeared into a nearby tangle of rosebushes.
Stephen started after her, but at that moment the gentleman with the thistledown hair reappeared with the sound of a crash and a small, bright shower of mirror shards. Brushing away any spare bits of broken glass, the gentleman took Stephen’s arm. He seemed in much better spirits than formerly, and he merely frowned briefly at their surroundings and transported the two of them to another featureless stone corridor somewhere in the depths of Lost-hope.
Smiling, the gentleman said exuberantly, “Stephen, how I have missed you! The trials which I bear on your behalf are beyond measure, but I will bear them faithfully for you. When you are king, Stephen, you may find…” The gentleman continued on, but Stephen’s thoughts were with the dark-mouthed morning glory girl in the garden. He only hoped that she wouldn’t cut her unshod feet on the glittering mess of mirror shards that the gentleman had left behind.
*The gentleman would have told Stephen that his intended improved windows for Westminster included apertures that would allow the viewer to see everything that he was intended by others not to see, and everything that he ever wanted but was very unlikely to have. The first type of window was a more common enchantment, and all it tended to do was breed mistrust and break up marriages. The gentleman would have neglected to mention, however, that the second window was thought to be found in the castle of the Raven King, and that John Uskglass had forbidden anyone to look through it, as it drove the viewer mad.
**For instance, Stephen was certain that a lady dressed all in white had not followed three steps behind him all the days of his childhood, and nor had he ever possessed a cat with green eyes.
***These flowers are a very great mystery. The only place they are truly known to grow is in the strange country on the far side of Hell, and there only where things have happened that you have never heard tell of, they are so unsettling. If plucked from the vine, they will scream, and the wrists of the picker will begin to bleed with blood that does not belong to them. As to how they came to be in the tower, it was known among the aureate magicians that John Uskglass tended to a glade filled with them in that strange country on the far side of Hell. Seeds might easily have fallen from the hem of his coat and taken root on those steps, but facts pertaining to the presence of the Raven King in Lost-hope are unfounded and shaky at best. John Uskglass also may have taken a silver knife and scratched the figure of a raven into the stones of the place, but for what purpose no one can be certain.