wip wednesday-thursday ♥
HELLO FRIENDS thank you so much @myreia AND @thevikingwoman for the tags!!!
I am eaten by school rn so I am taking this opportunity to inflict my nanowrimo nonsense upon you :) It's a long excerpt so hopefully tumblr dot website doesn't ruin everything.
tagginggggggg @delirious-comfort @yourlocaldisneyvillain @thepapernautilus @quinnthebard @eemamminy-art annnnnnd anyone else who wants to share!
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It is the height of the Season of Change. The year is 12:16, and the Era is called Progress. The beautiful town of Godsplace reflects a fragment of its ancient glory on days such as these, the warm hue of the changing leaves and the somber grey of the sky set against the severe stone buildings that make up its historic Town Square.
Indeed, Godsplace looks every bit its ancient self today, for set up in the center of the Square is a massive structure, a kind of stage where the players are town officials, and the story is one of deadly seriousness.
Of some interest to the gathered audience are a young man and a young lady passing through the square, neither one paying the crowd any mind. The young man is handsome and well-dressed, and even if his face were not known to the people gathered in the square, his features are nonetheless unmistakable. Bryce Davensay is possessed of the bright complexion and strawberry blonde hair of all noble houses of Godsplace.
The young lady traveling with him is known to the people in the square, too, either by face or by name. Tamsin Ward is possessed of features that lend her a somewhat severe countenance, and hair of the sort people call dishwater blonde, tied back from her face without regard for fashion. Her dress is plain, but it is clean and fits her well. To an outsider, it would not seem out of place to see Tamsin walking together with Bryce Davensay.
“Oh,” Bryce stops short. “Perhaps we’d better find another way around.”
“Why?” Tamsin asks, but soon enough there is no need for an answer. “Oh.”
Bryce takes Tamsin by the elbow and leads her through the outskirts of the crowd, nodding and smiling his acknowledgement as he passes. Tamsin keeps her head bowed low, her severe features schooled into neutrality, and follows where she is led.
When they are mostly out of earshot, Tamsin murmurs, “I wonder what happened.”
“Better not to know, I think,” says Bryce with forced lightness. He gestures that they should turn down a small side street leading away from the square.
“People of Godsplace!” booms a voice from the platform. “Gather round, gather round! Do not be so bold as to turn your eyes away!”
Bryce and Tamsin stop cold. They turn around. It is too late to leave.
There are four men standing on the platform, each occupying one corner. They are appointed officials, marked by a telltale patch bearing the town’s seal, which is sewn onto each of their uniform jackets. Two more approach the platform, with a young woman walking between them. She is markedly small by comparison, barely more than a girl, really, and she is all bound up in heavy ropes.
Bryce averts his eyes, fixating on a point somewhere below center stage. Tamsin cannot bring herself to look away. The girl meets her gaze, wide-eyed and frightened. Tamsin thinks she must be silently begging for help.
Unbeknownst to the people of Godsplace, an outsider lurks in the shadows, watching the proceedings under cover of a heavy cloak to shield her from the changing winds. She has half a thought to intervene, but something tells her such an effort would be worse than wasted. She has other business to attend to here.
The men lead the girl up onto the platform. She does not struggle.
“Gentle people of Godsplace,” the man on the close left corner continues. “Look bravely upon this wretched creature. Know fear, and then know peace, for she will not live to harm you any longer.”
There is a low murmur among the crowd, the ones who came knowingly. The ones who came to watch. As if on cue, the cold wind rustles through the trees above them, and the jittery whispers of the crowd take on a hue of growing anticipation.
The men tie the girl to a large wooden stake positioned at the center of the platform. Her crime is called witchcraft, but there is no telling what she has actually done. It is dangerous even to ask.
“People of Godsplace!” the front-leftmost man cries, a fanatical note of desperation in his resonant voice. “Do you know fear?”
Yes, the crowd whispers. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
“How will you find peace?”
Burn her. Burn her, burn her, burn her.
“Burn her?”
“Burn her!”
“Burn her?”
“Burn her!”
The back-rightmost man lights the torch that will finish the job. The flame makes a terrible whisper, a warning rumble, barely even as loud as the rustle of the wind. The girl starts to cry.
“How will we find peace?” the first man cries, as though beseeching the very heavens.
And the crowd replies, as though possessed by the word of the gods, “Burn her! Burn her! Burn her!”
The girl screams. It is the high, thin scream of a child, and it seems to go on forever. Even after she stops, Tamsin imagines she can still hear the sound ringing in her ears, louder than the howling wind, louder than the madding crowd, drowning out her thoughts until there is nothing but that endless, deafening scream.
A celebration will follow. People will dance and sing praises to the gods for protecting them, for rooting out this evil before it could infect this sacred place. Bryce sees an opening and ducks back toward the side street, pulling Tamsin along by the elbow. The heavy-cloaked watcher takes note of them, but something tells her she need not follow.
Tamsin and Bryce bolt down the side street and out onto another before they slow their pace, and even then they seem to have silently agreed among themselves not to linger. They walk quickly and huddle close together.
“I feel it’s my fault,” Bryce murmurs. “I should have known there’d be a burning today.”
“She looked so…young,” says Tamsin, subconsciously wrapping her arms about herself. “I wonder what could have happened.”
Bryce falters. He imagines he knows the answer, but it’s not something a lady should hear. “It seems to me they’ll think of any excuse these days. I hope you’ll be careful until the weekend?”
Tamsin’s features contort slightly. “You make it sound like I’ll be above suspicion by then.”
Bryce doesn’t quite manage a laugh. “Well. I hope you’ll take care even after that. But still.”
“I appreciate the thought,” says Tamsin, not very convincingly.
They hurry through the streets until they turn onto the road that leads to Tamsin’s home, and only then do they slow their pace. Both had hoped for a more pleasant outing, but their business has been attended to, and their spirits are decidedly soured. They probably won’t find time to see each other again before the weekend.
Tamsin reaches for the handle of her front door.
“If there’s anything you need, you’ll send for me, won’t you?” says Bryce impulsively.
Tamsin holds, then turns back to him, surprised. “What do you mean?” she asks him. “What could I possibly need that I can’t do for myself?” There is no accusation in her tone, but she is genuinely baffled by Bryce’s offer.
“Just… I mean,” he tries, tugging somewhat awkwardly at the cuff of his sleeve. “Look, I didn’t mean anything by it,” he tries again, with a sheepish smile, “just, if anyone gives you any trouble. You or your mother. Of course you can handle it yourself, just… You don’t have to. That’s all.”
Tamsin remembers, for the first time in months, why she used to like Bryce so much. His words are sincere, she can see it shining in his eyes. It’s not exactly his fault that she takes offense at the notion of accepting the privilege of his influence.
She smiles, and means it. “Thanks, Bryce. Really.”
He returns her smile, and gives her a small bow before he makes to depart. “Take care, Tamsin. Give my regards to Mrs. Burkow.”
“Give my regards to Natty, and Natty only,” Tamsin replies lightly. Bryce’s sister Natalie is the only member of his family who has any interest in her regards, anyway.
Tamsin closes the door behind her and heaves a sigh. She thought as time passed, she would just…naturally get used to the idea, but it hasn’t happened yet. It still seems impossibly foreign, like something out of a disquieting dream.
“Back so soon?” her mother calls from the sitting room.
“It was busy in the Square,” says Tamsin. It is a euphemism her mother understands.
“I see,” she replies with a sigh.
Tamsin’s mother looks almost nothing like her. She has warm brown hair and broad-set shoulders, and a round face with the kind of gentle features people tend to read as kindly. Tamsin, by contrast, is all angles, and even in her earliest youth always had a rather severe countenance, accentuated by the straight set of her brow and the thin line of her lips.
“Bryce sends his regards,” says Tamsin. Tamsin’s mother is called Mrs. Burkow and not Mrs. Ward because Tamsin herself has no family name. Mr. and Mrs. Burkow took her in when she was little more than a newborn babe, but she retained the name given to orphans and bastards. She’s never thought to question their choice. It’s only a name, after all. Soon enough, she’ll have another.
Mrs. Burkow lights up at the mention of her future son-in-law. “Oh, what a perfect gentleman!” she coos happily. “And how did it go in town? Everything’s taken care of?”
“Mhm,” says Tamsin, looking for something on which to focus her attention. The errands were barely necessary, more of a formality than anything else. The story is that they were to go around to the shop and the ceremonial hall and ensure that all is in order for the weekend, but of course there was no reason it wouldn’t be.
“Honestly, Tamsin, I don’t know why you’re not more excited,” her mother complains.
Tamsin feels a little bad for spoiling Mrs. Burkow’s good mood. Someone ought to be having a good time. “It’s not that,” she lies. “Just, the business in the Square is on my mind at the moment.”
“And that’s another thing,” her mother continues, and Tamsin knows the battle is already lost. “I don’t know why you let yourself get all worked up about these things.”
Tamsin picks self-consciously at her skirt. “It’s just a little gruesome, isn’t it?”
“You know, I worked hard to arrange this marriage for you,” says Mrs. Burkow. “You think it would have just happened all on its own? No! And you used to love Bryce! Honestly, I thought you’d be overjoyed, and instead, this is the thanks I get? Not three days out from your wedding day, and all you want to talk about is some nasty business in the Town Square?”
Tamsin has given up on finding something to do. She stands with her hands clasped, contrite and wordless. Her mother is right, after all. Bryce is the eldest surviving son of the Davensay family, and thus heir to his family’s fortune. He is by all accounts handsome and unfailingly kind, well-liked and respected by all their peers. His prospects are perhaps the very best in all of Godsplace.
Until a few months ago, Tamsin and Bryce were close friends. They went everywhere together, and told each other nearly everything. Tamsin’s mother often warned her that she shouldn’t pin her hopes on someone like Bryce, because one day soon he’d be expected to marry, and then she’d be all alone and heartbroken.
But then, back in the spring, Mrs. Burkow had suddenly changed her tune. It was like the Season of Flowers had bloomed right inside her heart, and she could do nothing but smile wistfully whenever Tamsin came home.
The news had come as a terrible shock to Tamsin. She hadn’t even celebrated her sixteenth birthday yet, and already she was engaged to be married. Mrs. Burkow was undoubtedly the happiest about the match, with the possible exception of Bryce’s younger sister Natalie. Bryce’s parents were (and remain) decidedly skeptical on the matter of Tamsin’s suitability. Tamsin remains decidedly unenthused.
Bryce himself was decidedly sheepish after the news broke, but it’s clear he has warmed to the idea. Tamsin reasons that he is a couple of years older, and the eldest son of a noble family besides. Surely he is simply more accustomed to the notion of marriage in general than she, who had not expected to have to think on such matters so soon, if at all.
Although she cannot be sure what was said, Tamsin thinks it’s very clear her mother has oversold her suitability as a spouse. Tamsin cooks and cleans and tends to whatever needs tending for her mother not because it is her life’s calling, but because she feels it’s her due. Mrs. Burkow didn’t have to take her in and raise her, and Tamsin doesn’t know what would have become of her otherwise. In spite of her humble beginnings, Tamsin had always hoped she might aspire to something a bit different than the lot of a happy homemaker.
And anyway, it’s not like the wife of a nobleman would be expected to do those kinds of things on the regular. Tamsin imagines she’ll be expected to…socialize, and hold events, a feat to which she is even less suited. Tamsin is not particularly skilled with people or making pleasant small talk, and she knows perfectly well that marrying above her station won’t be taken kindly.
Indeed, the one who stands to benefit the most from this arrangement is Mrs. Burkow. It is not she who has married above her station, after all, even if it was she who pulled the strings. She may freely reap the benefits of her rise in fortune without facing half as much of the backlash.
If Tamsin were the sort of person who could ingratiate herself to the upper class, she thinks, she might know what she’s meant to say to Mrs. Burkow right now. But she comes up woefully short. She is not excited for the wedding, and she doubts she ever will be. And the more she tries not to think about what she saw in the Square, the more it permeates every corner of her mind. Somewhere just out of sight she’s certain she can still hear that high, thin scream.
“You’re right,” Tamsin tries, her gaze downcast. “I’m sorry.”
“Honestly,” Mrs. Burkow sighs, but there is a certain note of triumph about her voice. “You’d think a girl like you would show a little more gratitude.”
But the pitiful words, thank you, catch in the back of her throat. She is not grateful. Not for this.
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