#magorian

[carewyncromwell]

Torvus 🤝 Carewyn

The Wizarding World overall has always had a difficult relationship with all intelligent magical creatures that were not human. Goblins were denied wand use and could often only find stable employment in the Wizarding World through working in magical banks, since the Statute of Secrecy insisted they and other magical Beings stay out of Muggle view. Werewolves were treated as second-class citizens and chased out of most solid employment once their status came to light. Elves were often reduced down to mere slaves in the households of old Pureblood families despite having magic that easily outstripped wizards in regards to power. And the list went on.

Despite this, there were amazingly quite a few such non-human creatures that ultimately helped defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort, when he sought to take over the entirety of Wizarding Britain. At the Battle of Hogwarts in particular, the Order of the Phoenix's ranks included known werewolf Remus Lupin, and it was also backed up by reinforcements such as the school's house elves and (to everyone's surprise) the centaur herd that lived in the Forbidden Forest. One of the bravest members of the herd was one of its youngest warriors -- a stern dark-haired centaur with a tanned, young adult face and a dun-colored flank named Torvus -- and after the Battle, he was bestowed many honors by both the school's professors and his herd, all of which he accepted with very understated gratitude.

Imagine the herd's surprise, therefore, when their grim, stoic hero reacted with visible excitement, in response to a well-dressed, ginger-haired human with red lipstick coming to visit the Centaur Camp after the battle.

"Carewyn!"

Torvus's voice was very low and resonant, but echoed with great warmth as he galloped up to the human. He towered over her, to the point that she was encompassed in his shadow as he trotted quickly around her, looking her over. She was smiling just as broadly as he was, even with how wide her eyes were.

"Torvus!" said Carewyn, her wide eyes bright with delight. "Merlin -- Hagrid wasn't kidding, you have grown a lot!"

"Such is typical for us centaurs," Torvus said mildly, as he continued to look her over with something like muted amusement. "You, however, seem to have only become smaller, old friend."

Carewyn gave a light scoff. "I'm exactly the height I was before, thank you. If you were too, that'd be obvious -- "

"Torvus."

Torvus looked up at the herd's second-in-command, Bane, as he approached. The large black-flanked, bearded centaur glanced from Torvus to down at Carewyn with visible disgust and disapproval.

"What is the meaning of this?" he said, his muscular arms crossed over his chest. "Did my ears actually catch you calling this human your friend?"

Torvus shifted so as to stand right behind Carewyn, bending just enough so that he cast his shadow completely over her.

"Bane, this human is Carewyn Cromwell," Torvus said very lowly. His face had become much more stoic again. "She is an old friend of our herd. Hagrid has delivered gifts from her in the past, around the Winter Solstice -- "

"Hagrid has not been a friend of the herd in many a year," Bane said very sharply.

"A fact that only came about in large part because of his protection of me."

All of the centaurs turned, to make room for another kinder-voiced one as he approached. Despite the large hoof-shaped scar stamped into his chest and his immense height, this new arrival moved with both conviction and an almost deer-like grace.

Carewyn's eyes lit up.

"Firenze!" she said, delighted.

Firenze approached Carewyn at a much more leisurely trot, but was otherwise just as warm in his welcome as Torvus. He even opened his hands to take both of hers.

"Carewyn Cromwell," the part-time Divination professor greeted her with a fond smile. "I was very pleased to see your star's trajectory shifting back towards Hogwarts, if only temporarily."

"I'm so glad you're back home with your herd again," Carewyn said earnestly.

Firenze glanced back at Bane's counterpart -- the older, dark-haired leader of the herd called Magorian -- as he too clopped forward to get a better look at Carewyn. Magorian looked less condescending than Bane, but he still studied Carewyn very critically, his black eyes tiny sparkling pinpricks on his face with how narrowed they were.

"Remind me of these gifts Carewyn Cromwell has sent our herd, Torvus?" said Magorian.

Torvus moved that little bit closer to Carewyn so that his head was right over hers, as he stared down his herd's leader.

"Nine years prior," he said very stoically, "Carewyn secured the herd's blessing through gifting us a loaf of hand-baked banana bread, a batch of Hagrid's rock cakes, branches of fresh sage, and our most extensive star chart. She then brought me many other edible gifts throughout that year and the following year, and upon her graduation from the wizards' school, sent the herd other handmade goods through Hagrid. Most recently, three years ago, Hagrid passed along a box from her that contained what she called 'candied oranges.'"

"Magorian, if I may speak?" asked Firenze. Upon the leader giving a nod of consent, he pressed on, "I can testify to Carewyn's character. I was the one who first welcomed her into our herd -- "

Bane blustered through his nose and lips. "Hardly surprising -- you've always had a soft spot for humans, Firenze -- "

"I thought that you, like the rest of the herd, had come to see the rightness of us helping the humans in their fight against the Dark Lord," Firenze challenged him.

"That may be," Bane shot back, "but just because we had to ally ourselves with humans for our own self-preservation doesn't mean we have to befriend the creatures that have deemed the world we occupy theirs alone to control -- "

"Firenze, you said you wished to speak in regards to Carewyn Cromwell's character," Magorian cut off both of the younger centaurs, crossing his arms. "Was what you said truly all you wished to say?"

Firenze's eyes narrowed just a bit as he turned his focus back onto the leader.

"No. Prior to being welcomed to our camp, Carewyn helped with breaking the curse on the Vault placed in our Forest by the four Founders of Hogwarts school. In doing so, she brought peace to this forest."

"She also returned my lost arrowhead to me," Torvus interjected quickly.

"Torvus." Firenze shot the younger centaur a short, but still supportive look over his shoulder -- almost as if reminding him to let him do the talking. "...Carewyn's efforts likewise brought peace to our herd, as well, by helping Torvus reclaim his honor and bringing him back into the fold. Not to mention that her treats have always been quite tasty," Firenze added with a bit of a smile in his expression.

Magorian cocked his eyebrows at Firenze. He then glanced from Torvus to down at Carewyn still standing tall in his shadow.

"Do you agree with Firenze's assessment of your achievements, Carewyn Cromwell?" he asked.

Carewyn tried very hard not to look away or blink, however much she wanted to.

"Firenze is very kind," she said quietly. "But I can't take full credit for dealing with the Forest Vault -- I couldn't have done what I did without my friends. Hagrid and Torvus, included."

She shot a quick glance at Bane before returning her gaze to Magorian.

"...If I may, though," she said respectfully, though she didn't give any opening for Bane or otherwise to prevent her from speaking. "I understand if I'm no longer welcome in your home. However much I consider Torvus a friend, and I always will...I know how much he values his family. I would never want to come between him and you. And Bane's right -- witches and wizards have done you a lot of wrong. We still do, in a lot of ways. Even if you had to fight with humans to fight a greater evil, that hasn't changed. And even if I don't agree with how centaurs have been treated, that doesn't mean that it hasn't defined my world and the life I live in it. Nor does it mean I haven't found success in that world that overlooks or even demonizes Beasts and Beings that don't conform to Ministry standards...in part because I am able to conform to those standards."

Bane's face scrunched up completely, his eyes flashing with resentment. All of the other centaurs, though, seemed to react much less distrustfully -- most looked confused or curious, but Firenze and Torvus were both smiling, and even Magorian considered Carewyn with something almost intrigued.

"It's rare to hear a human be so critical of her own kind," the herd leader said levelly. "And rather eloquently so."

He straightened up slightly, his black eyes boring into her from above with a bit less suspicion.

"Very well. I shall uphold Firenze's initial judgment, Carewyn Cromwell. You are welcome, among our herd."

Both Carewyn and Torvus couldn't completely fight back large grins. Torvus quickly gave a respectful bow to the herd leader, before beckoning Carewyn further into the camp.

"Come, Carewyn," said Torvus, his stoic face once betraying that warmth from before that made him look considerably younger. "We can sit further in, and you can tell me of you and your brother's place in this War. Then I can tell you of the Battle waged at the castle."

Carewyn nodded and immediately followed Torvus away from the rest of the herd and deeper into the camp.

For the next few hours, Torvus and Carewyn sat by the roaring fire, catching up. Carewyn told Torvus of her and Jacob's covert assistance of the Order of the Phoenix, her having to stay undercover at the Ministry to sabotage the Death Eaters' efforts, and Jacob both hiding fugitives in his flat and at one point even dousing a dangerous strain of Fiendfyre set loose in Hogsmeade village by the Death Eaters at great risk to his own safety.

"I saw your brother, at the battle," said Torvus, "though we had no chance to speak during it. Your brother appeared to have suffered great losses, there."

Carewyn nodded sadly. The faces of Fred, Tonks, Lupin, and Snape all brushed over her mind.

"We all have," she murmured.

Torvus actually reached in to brush a loose hair off of Carewyn's shoulder, before bringing the rest of it behind her ear. Carewyn wasn't used to people being in her personal bubble like that, but she knew that centaurs in particular expressed affection through fixing and grooming each other's hair. She offered Torvus a weak smile, which Torvus returned with a stoic, but still gentle look.

"Our herd was lucky, to have no casualties," he said. "Though I believe that's because most of us did not join the battle until the second half. Only Firenze was brave enough to fight from the start...the rest of us were hesitant to oppose the will of the stars, even though Hagrid triggered our conscience. It was but when I pointed out the position of Sagittarius and the North Star in the heavens that any of the centaurs allowed themselves to hope that our efforts could turn the tide of battle."

"And you did," said Carewyn, beaming. "Hagrid said that you were particularly brave. He said you took down multiple Acromantula single-handed and saved several teachers' lives."

Torvus shook his head modestly. "Thank you. I am grateful for the praise I have received -- though I remain unsure how much of my efforts were built on my own talents, or if Fate and Potter's own magic had machinations to make my efforts so meaningful."

Carewyn frowned. "What do you mean?"

"When Potter went out to the Forest to give up his own life to the Dark Lord, his sacrifice -- although ultimately not resulting in his death -- still nonetheless sparked to life a powerful protective magic. All because the sacrifice was still so selfless and sincere."

Carewyn's eyes widened, lighting up with realization.

"Love," she breathed. "Potter was ready to sacrifice his life to try to protect Hogwarts."

Torvus nodded, his lips touched with the shadow of a smile. "Indeed. And that spell prevented the Dark Lord or his followers to land any permanent damage on the school or its occupants. So by fighting in the battle...my herd and I both ensured our own safety and were likely given additional strength, in helping to protect those others Potter meant to protect."

Carewyn smiled a bit more too. "Even so...you must not have known anything about that until the Battle was over. I'd say that still made what you did incredibly brave."

Torvus's black eyes softened. "Thank you, Carewyn. As were your words to Magorian -- I think he was impressed by your conviction, when you'd been received with little warmth or trust."

"Your herd had reason to not trust me," said Carewyn. "I am a human, and a witch as well -- and a lot of witches don't treat centaurs with respect. I had to work quite closely with one during the War, much to my displeasure," she added contemptuously.

Torvus cocked his eyebrows. "Ah yes -- the one called Dolores Umbridge, I believe you mean? Firenze has heard much of her exploits at your Ministry, through Minerva McGonagall. I was quite displeased to hear that she didn't learn her lesson, after the justice we bestowed upon her two years ago."

"What did you do to her?" Carewyn asked, cocking her eyebrows as well. "From what I heard, Umbridge was absolutely traumatized by that whole affair."

Torvus gave a light bluster through his lips. "Her trauma came about from her own flaws of character, more than anything we did. The pathetic creature was so disgusted of us merely touching her that we hardly needed to use our weapons -- merely dragging her through the forest, tossing her between us and taunting her the whole while, was enough to terrify her..."

"Well, admittedly, being carried up off the ground by complete strangers who are stronger than you with no chance at escape can be rather scary," Carewyn said coolly. "Especially for women of shorter stature."

"Believe me when I say we would never have treated you with such lack of care," said Torvus stiffly. "Least of all because you wouldn't have conjured ropes trying to strangle our leader or called us 'filthy half-breeds,' 'uncontrolled animals,' and 'creatures of near-human intelligence.'"

Carewyn looked disgusted, but not surprised.

"I never said I thought Umbridge didn't deserve what she got," she said primly. "I was very glad to put her under citizen's arrest the first moment I had."

Her red lips danced with a bit more mischief as she added, "And to forcibly clear out her office. I've always liked cats -- but Umbridge really has made it very difficult for me to like anything patterned with them."

When Carewyn finally left the Centaur Camp, Torvus, Firenze, and Magorian all sent her off with good wishes. Magorian reiterated the promise that she would be welcome to visit the Camp in the future, if she so desired, and that any gifts she were to send through Hagrid would be accepted with open arms. Firenze even gave Carewyn a parting gift of several branches of lavender, bound with twine.

"Lavender has protective properties," said the part-time Divination professor. "It can ward off negative energies that may surround the holder. And if I'm not mistaken, lavender is a scent you're attuned to," he added with a wryer smile, with a pointed twitch of his nose.

Carewyn covered her mouth to hold in a giggle. "I keep lavender sachets in my bureau. Thank you, Firenze."

Torvus himself walked Carewyn out of the Camp all the way to the perimeter of the Forest, and the two exchanged a hug before parting.

Carewyn sadly had much less chance to visit Hogwarts and Torvus by extension as much as she would've liked, around all the work she had to do for the Ministry...but through gifts and mutual friends, they stayed in touch, and whenever they did get the chance to collide again, the two stoic personalities would both light up when in each other's presence.

Friendship Drabble Prompt!

[nostalgicreading]

Found family in war times

Title: Goodnight mister Tom

Author: Michelle Magorian

Genre: Historical fiction, young adult, children. 

Publication year: 1981

Main character: Willie is a scrawny and timid 8 year old boy who’s been brought up in terrible poverty by a physically and emotionally abusive religious mentally unstable mother. He is scared of almost everything and not use to the basic kindness he is shown by the people around him. Away from his mother he gradually changes into a very sweet boy who loves to help others and shows a talent when it comes to drawing and painting. He learns to stand up for himself and trust people.

Story: During world war 2 Willie is, like many other children, evacuated to the English countryside. He is placed in the home of a reclusive, gruff and old widower in his sixties called Tom. They both start off unsure of the other one, but Tom quickly notices that Willie isn’t a normal happy kid and immediately steps up to try and give him an at least somewhat normal childhood. Being different people who have both been through a lot, it takes some time, but they eventually open up to the other about their hardships and grow closer. Things change yet again when Willies mother wants him back again.

Reading experience: I’ve read this book 3 times; once as an audiobook during a long car trip when I was a kid, once in school as a teen, and once in my free time as an adult. Every single time I have cried throughout the entire thing. The things Tom and Willie have been through, the way they help each other heal and grow as people, and the father son relationship they form is so emotionally devastating. All of this during such a terrible time is even more emotionally wrecking. Classic found family/grumpy old man adopts a child story, but with extra trauma. 

When I read it in school I remember going on and on with my classmates just how sad it was. It left quite an impression on me the first time. So many memories coming back the second time. Mostly the traumatic ones. Many classmates asked me about the fates of certain characters. It’s a book about abuse and war, so no character is truly safe. Willie sure has been through a lot... And goes through more in the book itself. All his sad moments are somewhat balanced out by the lengths Tom is willing to go for him, which saves the book from being way to depressing. But it's still sorrowful. 

For some reason my mental image of “Mister Tom” was always Hagrid from Harry Potter. A gentle giant. Not sure why since they are so different. 

[best-childhood-book]

[dekarios]

tagged by @gothimp thankies.. <3

5 Songs

crossing over - lawless

blame - echoes

weight of everything - ill factor

hurt - of verona

sirens alternative - black math

all songs from the eden x yrliet playlist hiiii ^_^

Questions

1. Three ships you like:

ive been thinking about new ships a lot recently so im gonna put down new ones ive been enjoying :) i assume this is not meant to include ocs ........

yrliet x gale theyre not even from the same universes but boy do i like it ^_^

orin x ketheric .... yeah ...!!!!!!!

companion au default durge x tavflayer ..... oohhhh i might kms... bonus points making it poly with gale hiiiii

2. First ship ever: oh fuck god . i dont know?? i grew up watching buffy and i suppose i liked the stuff going on there.. like willow and oz was cute...... buffy and angel... but god idk if i shipped them i was an infant..... oh i think i liked.. uhh.. tj and spinelli as a kid.. thinking about it i think i projected on tj and had a crush on spinelli .......... Huh that says a lot ... ok

3. Last song you heard: scream - dreamcatcher

4. Favorite Childhood Book: goodnight mr tom by michelle magorian........ u can tell im english

5. Currently Reading: scourge the heretic by sandy mitchell & konrad curze: the night haunter by guy haley ... we are warhammering

6. Currently Watching: uhh nothing ...... slkdfjsdl;fksdf

7. Currently Craving: yrliet merch.. theres just nothing and i feel like a yrliet keychain would fix me or smth yknow....

tagging.. . @ttrpgs @minscofrashemen @vitanithepure @heinrix @voigtvir @marazhaiaezyrraesh @prismbearer @johnnystorm @ikarons @moxley and anyone else who wants to do it.. ^_^ !!!!

[toaster-trash]

hi! i just saw your post about your interest, and if i may ask, could you recommend me some musicals and books?

i love historical/gothic stuff, and i’m looking for some recs :]

have a nice day!

Sure, I could try! Although I’m not super certain which you’ve probably read already lmao

Books: Honestly pretty much just all the standard gothic shenanigans that you’ve probably already read? I guess Carmilla, La Morte Amoureuse and The Vampyre are slightly more niche (which I found out about back when I was getting into gothic literature by reference from my wonderful mutual @virtuous-vertebrae (they have absolutely flabbergasting wonderful art so absolutely go check them out if you already haven’t)) but yeah more or less on the gothic side of things most of the books I’m into are reasonably standard. Tell-tale Heart too I really like that I don’t think I ever posted about. I remember liking The Raven even though I haven’t read it in a couple years I think. (Those are the only two Edgar Allen Poe works I’ve ever read haha) And of course Dracula, Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, all the standard shenanigans

By way of NON gothic literature, Les Misérables 100%, and Goodnight Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian is probably up there for one of my favourite books, although I’m probably very biased because I read it in primary school when I was 11 and I have a lot of really good memories of reading it lmao. But I’d still 100% recommend it. Apart from that, yeah, kind of it?

Musicals, again, no clue what you’ve already listened to, but obviously, Les Misérables (10th anniversary cast recording supremacy, Philip Quast you’re an absolute genius), Phantom of the Opera of course (25th anniversary recording supremacy), Frankenstein A New Musical (Hunter Foster you ARE Victor Frankenstein to me), The Count of Monte Cristo musical is pretty good although I don’t think I’ve ever listened to the entire thing from start to finish? The Jekyll and Hyde musical I have mixed feelings on, obviously it isn’t remotely book accurate however the songs are absolute bangers so I’m including it. Not really gothic, but Ride the Cyclone is great, The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals is always great. The Sound of Music is bloody fantastic, adore it. Sweeny Todd, of course. I’m still known to listen to Hamilton on occasion💔 Yeah, more or less it.

[littleplasticrat]

Welcome!

I live in the bin. She/her, mid-30s, English. Call me Jade

I have very normal feelings about Baldur's Gate 3 and I also sometimes share a meme or an animal pic

This blog is NSFW in that I would not advise looking at it while in your place of employment, unless you work for the same company as me (Mr Magorian's Whoredom Emporium)

Which male pin-up am I working on? See the schedule for the next couple of months.

I post more revealing pin-ups and colouring pages on my Patreon

Click here to see my art (some NSFW) and process pictures

I've written some smutty fanfics

Print shop (NSFW not currently available)

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1916 – Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was apprehended while trying to stop looting during the Easter Rising and was later murdered by the British without trial.

Francis Skeffington, writer and pacifist, was born in Bailieborough, Co Cavan on the 23 December 1878 to Joseph Bartholomew Skeffington and his wife Rose née Magorian. The family moved to Co Down shortly after his birth. He was educated by his father, a schools inspector and enrolled in University College Dublin (UCD) in 1896. While he studied at UCD he became close friends with James Joyce and…

[cecilyacat]

BBC Big Read List

Many years ago, I first started tallying the books from the BBC Big Read list, seeing how my reading and interests correllate. I don't take it as the "one truth" on which books are worth reading or "good", I just find it interesting which ones I agree with. Let's go!

Out of the BBC's "The Big Read" list from 2005, which ones did you read, plan to read or started to read, but didn't finish? The ones I read are fat, the ones I still want to read are in italics, the ones I started but didn't finish are crossed out and all the other ones I have either never heard of before or never wanted to read them.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien 2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen 3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman 4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams 5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling 6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee 7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne 8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell 9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis 10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë 11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller 12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë (and I thought it was horrible. But I wanted to finish it!) 13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks 14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier 15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger 16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame 17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens 18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott 19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres 20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy 21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell 22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling 23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling 24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling 25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien 26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy 27. Middlemarch, George Eliot 28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving 29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck 30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll 31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson 32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez 33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett 34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens 35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl 36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson 37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute 38. Persuasion, Jane Austen 39. Dune, Frank Herbert 40. Emma, Jane Austen 41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery 42. Watership Down, Richard Adams 43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald 44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas 45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh 46. Animal Farm, George Orwell 47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens 48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy 49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian 50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett (and I love it) 52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck (didn't finish it in school but want to try again) 53. The Stand, Stephen King 54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy 55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth 56. The BFG, Roald Dahl 57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome 58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell 59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer 60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky 61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman 62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden 63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens 64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough 65. Mort, Terry Pratchett 66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton 67. The Magus, John Fowles 68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman 69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett 70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding 71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind 72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell 73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett 74. Matilda, Roald Dahl 75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding 76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt 77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins 78. Ulysses, James Joyce 79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens 80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson 81. The Twits, Roald Dahl 82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith 83. Holes, Louis Sachar 84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake 85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy 86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson 87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley 88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons 89. Magician, Raymond E Feist 90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac 91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo 92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel 93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett 94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho 95. Katherine, Anya Seton 96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer 97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez 98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson 99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot 100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome 102.Small Gods, Terry Pratchett 103. The Beach, Alex Garland 104. Dracula, Bram Stoker 105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz 106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens 107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz 108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks 109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth 110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson 111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy 112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend 113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat 114. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo 115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy 116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson 117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson 118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde 119. Shogun, James Clavell 120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham 121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson 122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray 123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy 124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski 125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver 126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett 127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison 128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle 129. Possession, A. S. Byatt 130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov 131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood 132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl 133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck 134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl 135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett 136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker 137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett 138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan 139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson 140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson 141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque 142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson 143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby 144. It, Stephen King 145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl 146. The Green Mile, Stephen King 147. Papillon, Henri Charriere 148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett 149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian 150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz

151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett 152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett 153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett 154. Atonement, Ian McEwan 155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson 156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier 157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey 158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad 159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling 160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon 161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville 162. River God, Wilbur Smith 163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon 164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx 165. The World According To Garp, John Irving 166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore 167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson 168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye 169. The Witches, Roald Dahl 170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White 171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (I've read excepts for uni) 172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams 173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway 174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco 175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder 176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson 177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl 178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov 179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach 180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery 181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson 182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens 183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay 184. Silas Marner, George Eliot 185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis 186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith 187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh (I stopped after the toilet-scene. Too disgusting) 188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine 189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri 190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. LawrenceLife of Lawrence 191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera 192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons 193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett 194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells 195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans 196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry 197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett 198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White 199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle 200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

Read: 57 Want to read: 60

Some of the books to read I know very little about except the title and that they're classics, some others I know a lot about (and I even have "Men at Arms" on my TBR pile for when the mood strikes me next). I like reading classics once in a while, but especially older ones I can't read too often, I need to be in the right mood for that style of writing.

The last time I updated this was in 2015 and I had read 44 and wanted to read 72 - so 15 books in 9 years xD Like I said, it's not a challenge or a goal to read all of them, just a convenient way of keeping track of which classics I want to read eventually.

[spoiledbrat217]

Does anyone have any book recommendations

I want a found family book, where the characters are an adult that takes in child type story, especially if the child is either scared or fighting the adult at every corner.

The only book I can find like that is 'Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian'.

[ladyaj-13]

Thank you @ronniebox for the tag!

Rules: List ten books that have stayed with you in some way, don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard - they don’t have to be the “right” or “great” works, just the ones that have touched you.

1. 'Witches Abroad' by Terry Pratchett

My first Discworld. I was immediately sucked in and knew it would be a new love. My dad bought me the book, and I remember starting to read it on a gloomy beach, laughing out loud and getting weird looks from my family. "You mean everyone brought potato salad?!"

2. 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee

An assigned book in high school, but one of the only ones I've returned to multiple times. I say it's my fave when I want to sound intellectual.

3. 'Good Omens' by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Came for the Terry Pratchett, stayed (and re-read maybe 10? 11 times?) because it's utter perfection. My actual favourite book.

4. 'Take Six Puppies' by Bette Paul

I don't know how many times I read this as a young child. My copy was almost in pieces, and the dogs on the front were embossed so you could run your fingers over them. I actually can't remember it much now, except the cover, but my God. I loved this book.

5. 'Claudia and the Middle School Mystery' (Babysitters' Club #40) by Ann M. Martin

I must have had about fifty of this series. I absolutely adored them, and used to play 'Babysitter's Club' in the garden. This one was the first book I ever bought with my own money. I remember it very clearly, handing over a £5 note in Wetherly's bookshop and feeling incredibly grown-up.

6. 'Goodnight Mister Tom' by Michelle Magorian

A lot of kids books on this list...! Another that I read over and over again, so much that the cover fell off. I think it was actually my sister's, but I commandeered it early on and never gave it back, and last re-read only a couple of years ago. As I got old enough to cook, I would fry bacon and cut thick slices of white bread, with a mug of tea, to mirror Willie's first meal at Tom's.

7. 'All Creatures Great and Small' by James Herriot (the whole series)

As a child I gave up on the idea of wanting to be a vet pretty quickly (too many distressed animals), but still devoured book after book about animals (special mention for the 'Animal Ark' books by Lucy Daniels, which I would get off the shelf and mix-up so they could sit next to other 'friends' for a while... I was a weird kid 😄), and discovering this series hidden away in my family's garage was a goldmine. I later got an 'all volumes in one' massive hardback edition. It led on to reading Gervase Phinn's school series and Gerard Durrell's 'My Family and Other Animals' series.

8. 'Strange Weather in Tokyo' by Hiromo Kawakami

A bit of an outlier in that I've only read this once, but it seemed worth including as it really stuck with me. Not the story so much, not a whole lot happens, but the vibe. It inspired me to read much more Japanese literature.

9. 'Past Mistakes' by David Mountain

I'm a bit of a social history magpie (love a BBC documentary), and this book was so readable and full of titbits - all those things you think you know about history, turned on their head. Just what I want out of a non-fiction book.

10. 'Hogfather' by Terry Pratchett

Another Pratchett?! Yes. This one is seasonal.

Wow, wordy. I could have mentioned many others, such as Wild Horses by Dick Francis (see how I snuck this one in 😛). I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but it was the first 'grown-up' book I read. (My mum gave it to me because it was about horses and I loved horses... possibly I was a bit too young for the sexual content and rampant misogyny she must have forgotten it contained, but there we go.) I'll tag @lemonistas, @londonfoginacup, @incognito-insomniac, @astridcontramundum and anyone else who wants to!

[smowkie]

Tag people you want to get to know better or catch up with

Thank you @novemberhush for the tag ❤️

Three ships you like - McShep, Wincest, Stony (ack, hard to limit it to three when the ships start to fight for attention x'D)

First ship ever - first ship where i knew that i was shipping was Sterek. idk what my actual first was because i never really used to think about these things until tumblr and Sterek happened to me x'D

Last song you heard - Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs performing Fast Car at the Grammys

Favourite childhood book - Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian (i've apparently always loved the Bad Things Happen trope)

Currently reading - McShep fics. i just finished watching the Stargate shows and i fell head over heels in fucking love with Rodney McKay, so i wanted to read fics about him and ao3/the fandom was like "we have McShep fics, those have McKay" and since i did like that ship it felt easier to find Rodney heavy fics in the ship tag than to try and find them through the character tag. i did find lots of Rodney feels there, but i also found lots of John Sheppard feels, as well as a brand new OTP... x'D but it's nice. i like it.

Currently watching - catching up on Halo. i am very weak for that big boy in his fancy armor. (the decision to add a gif here was a painful one, because how do i choose between a gif like this one and one with the helmet on? oof. in the end Pablo Schreiber's face won because it's very expressive, but christ i love that armor)

Currently consuming - tea, though "consuming" is a stretch as i've only drank half the cup and the tea has long since cold xD

Currently craving - i'm getting hungry and i have food planned (and mostly prepared) that i'm gonna fix soon and tbh i'm just thinking about that, so wraps with pulled pork i guess.

I tag @rieraclaelin @veltana @kiefjerky @ladydrace @niwolah @thor-ohdamnsonn @lena221bee @ravingrevolution and anyone else who wants to do this, feel free to claim a tag from me. And as always, no pressure to anyone tagged, feel free to ignore this, these are supposed to be fun ❤️

[aninsecurewriter]

100 must-read books!

This is a list of books considered "must-reads" from various lists and online posters. I'll be reviewing them as I go but mainly keeping track of what I have and haven't read here.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Matilda by Roald Dahl

The Secret History by Donna Tart

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Norwegian Wood bt Haruki Murakami

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Lolita Vladimir Nabokov

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Harry Potter Series by J.K Rowling

His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Ulysses by James Joyce

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Wild Swans by Jung Chang

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift

The War of the Worlds by H.G Wells

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt

Persuasion by Jane Austen

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Beloved by Toni Morrison

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

Macbeth by Shakespeare

The Lord of the Rings (trilogy) by J.R.R Tolkien

The Outsiders by S.E Hinton

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally

London Fields by Martin Amis

Sherlock Holmes and the The Hound of the Baskerville's by Arthur Conan Doyle

My Man Jeeves by P.G Wodehouse

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Gladys Aylward the Little Woman by Gladys Aylward

Mindnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy

The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas by John Boyne

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian

Dissolution by C.J Sansom

The Time Machine by H.G Wells

Winnie the Pooh (complete collection) by A.A Milne

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

The Castle by Franz Kafka

Dracula by Bram Stoker

All Quiet on the Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Misery by Stephen King

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis

The Shining by Stephen King

The Odyssey by Homer

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson

Tell No One by Harlan Coben

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

[turanga4]

Back on my Firenze Bullshit and It's Your Problem Now

Lil exposition of how Firenze may have come to make the choice he did during the first book, submitted for the most excellent Dumbledore's Armada Flash Fiction Challenge, "Rewrite the Stars."

Lil snippet after the cut:

In the stories, they were old and angry: neighbor killing neighbor, herd against herd.  In the Forest, everyone other than the man seemed very young—their voices raucous, sometimes cracking, their faces smooth and bright.  When he asked, he saw his mother’s scowl as she answered.  “They send their foals here, to live outside our forest.  There are men and women, in a castle, who teach the young ones things.”  School, his mother called it, but he did not understand—a place you had to go to that you knew was not your home.  Learning, she meant, and that he understood. Learning was the forest, the stories, the skies. The changes in those skies, as Firenze grew and learned, as the years unspooled and the world passed through its wars. “Retrograde,” said Magorian—the little planet looping back. Another night, the earth slid between the moon and sun, and they looked up in the sky at a circle of blood. Firenze’s eyes widened at the scattered, shocking portents, but his mother seemed most focused on the patterns taking shape.  “Something is growing,” she said softly.  “As above, so below.”   Grindelwald, said one student, after two years went by. The other humans, when they spoke, showed the hubris of their kind. “The War,” they repeated, as though there were only one. He asked the herd, one night, about above and below. “Why did our seers not tell them, when we knew these things were coming?  You see another, greater sign: is it not possible to act?“  Magorian’s voice was kind, but still firm. “It is not up to one star to shift the constellation. And what humans set off-course, they themselves must put to rights. This does not concern you. Our place is here.”

[the-al-chemist]

Artemis Hexley and the Return to the Riddles

Chapter 18: Prophecy Girl

A/N: Apologies for the cliffhanger of chapter 17. Let’s crack on, shall we? Warnings: threat and intrigue.

The Acromantula’s cold laugh echoed through the clearing, and Artemis felt her blood turn to ice in her veins. As the undergrowth rustled and the shadow of the spider emerged from the trees, she pushed against the overturned tree behind her, trying to force herself out of the web that bound her and pinned her to it. Beside her, Charlie and Barnaby were trying to do the same, while Talbott appeared to have frozen on the spot, and Chiara was helplessly trying to whisper words of reassurance to a crying Liz.

“I told you I would find you,” said the spider, clicking its pincers at them as it crawled into the clearing, advancing on them achingly slowly. “All of you. Now, which of you to eat first? I think maybe… ARGH!”

The spider screamed in pain as something flew threw the air and embedded itself in its back. Artemis frowned. What was it? A second item flew at the spider, and a third, and another, two more, and… Her eyes widened as she realised what they were.

Arrows.

A storm of arrows were raining down on the Acromantula thick and fast from all directions, and from all around the clearing there came an increasingly loud roll of thunder. Except it wasn’t thunder, it was the sound of hundreds of feet - no, hooves - pounding on the ground, which had started to shake beneath Artemis’ feet. 

From out of the trees, over two dozen centaurs cantered into the clearing, spears and knives and bows and arrows all raised and aiming for the Acromantula. They charged at the spider with weapons in their arms, bucking and rearing and kicking with their legs. 

The spider was attempting to fight back, but the centaurs were too numerous, too powerful, too vicious. Eventually, it fell to the ground, and was trampled beneath their hooves until it lay completely motionless, with three eyes and two legs missing. Victorious, the centaurs backed away, turning their mistrustful and still flaming eyes upon the group of curse-breakers. 

“Firenze, free these humans,” said one of the centaurs, one with dark hair and a chestnut coat, and a second, this one almost white-blond from his head to his palomino tail, used a blade to cut Artemis and her friends out of the spider’s web. 

“Thank you,” said Charlie, as his feet hit the ground. He bowed his head low, and did not raise it fully. His whole body bristled with nervous tension. “We can’t say that we deserve your intervention, but we are grateful for it.”

“We saw the red lights, and we decided to investigate,” said the first centaur. “This is fortunate for you. However, our intervention would not have been necessary had you not ventured into the forest.”

“Understood. We are sorry that it was necessary.”

The centaur narrowed his eyes at Charlie and swished his tail. Charlie lowered his gaze and stepped backwards, and the centaur did too. For a moment, it looked as if he meant to let them go, but behind him, a third centaur made a pained noise, and moved his hand away from his withers to reveal a large wound. Artemis heard Charlie swear under his breath, and first centaur stomped his hind foot.

“One of my herd is injured,” he said, his glare becoming fiercer and harder again. “You come here, you trespass, you lure the Acromantula from the cave, and now one of us is injured. This is your folly. This is your fault.” His hands gripped his spear, and his front hoof scraped the ground. “We should have left you to your fate. It would have been better to have left you to your fate.”

“I am sure they meant no harm, Magorian,” said the second centaur, the one who had freed them from the web. “After all, they are foals.”

“They look grown to me.”

“Barely grown, and not all of them. We do not harm foals.”

“One of us has been harmed by their actions, why should they not be harmed by ours?” the first centaur, Magorian, snapped. “If they are still foals, they will not be for long.”

“Wait!” Artemis reached into her pocket and brought out the piece of amber she had used to open the Forest Vault. She walked up to the centaur and held it in the dim light for him to see. “Please, don’t hurt us. I have this, it was given to me by a centaur. He said that it shows that I - my friends and I - should be allowed to pass through this forest unharmed.”

“What centaur gave you this?”

“I did,” a voice called out from the bulk of the herd, and the familiar dark haired head and dun-coloured hindquarters of Torvus emerged from the group.

Magorian stamped one of his hooved feet on the ground. “Why have you given this talisman to this human filly?”

Torvus fixed Artemis with a peculiar look as he answered the other centaur’s question with a question of his own: 

“Do you not know who this girl is?”

The first centaur looked from Artemis to the piece of amber in her hand, to the direction in which the Cursed Vault lay. His eyes widened, and a look of realisation paused across his face, softening his features.

“The Fay Child…”

The centaurs led the group of curse-breakers deeper into the forest, to another large clearing, and then onward through the trees to what looked like a settlement or campsite. Several large pieces of fabric and thin rafts made from woven strips of willow hung between trees, with the floor beneath them strewn with furs, leathers, and dried grass. Several small stone fire pits were dotted around the ground between the erected shelters, and there were more centaurs present than Artemis had even dreamed might live in the forest - not just grown males like the ones that had rescued her and her friends from the Acromantula, but females and foals, too.

On arrival to the camp, the male centaurs soon settled, and the guests were welcomed with only mild hostility. Magorian directed to Firenze to care for the injured member of the group, and Chiara quickly offered her services and healing remedies. Magorian looked sceptical, but Firenze bowed his head, and the two set to work.

The others were instructed to sit by one of the fire pits, which was lit by one of the female centaurs, dressed only in jewellery made from carved wooden beads and tiny polished pieces of amber. Talbott, Barnaby, and Charlie all stared fixedly at the ground as she worked, whilst Liz looked as if she were struggling to pluck up the courage to tell three foals to stop playing with her hair. When the female centaur finished lighting the fire, she turned to the foals, and with a single look from her, they scattered.

From beneath one of the fabric canopies, a centaur with dappled grey hindquarters, white braided hair, and an incredibly weathered and lined face walked towards them. Unlike the other male centaurs, he did not hold a weapon, but a carved wooden staff, which he pressed into the ground and leaned on as he slowly lowered his body to the ground with a loud exhalation.

“My name is Eldred,” he told them, in a voice that seemed to whisper like the wind through the leaves. He fixed his emerald green eyes on Artemis, the look in them entirely unreadable. “What is your given name, Fay Child?”

“It’s Artemis.”

“A good name, a huntress’ name.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Artemis frowned. “Why do you call me that? Fay Child. What does it mean?”

“If it is meaning you seek, you need only look to the world around you. There is great wisdom in everything, if only you know how to find it,” said Eldred. Seeming to realise that Artemis had no clue what he was talking about, he raised his gaze and pointed a finger skywards. “Look at the skies. The sky has been here since before any of our earliest ancestors had been dreamed into existence, and shall be here until the last of our descendants is long gone. It sees all, knows all, tells all. The forest tells us things, too. There are words in the wind, letters in the leaves, rhymes in the rivers, stories in the soil. The menfolk have forgotten this, but we remember. We remember.”

Artemis was no less confused than she had been before Eldred had spoken. She turned to look at her friends, and saw that they were just as mystified as she was.

“So, if I want to know what it means, I should look at the stars and stuff?” she asked, and Eldred inclined his head. “Okay, but I don’t know how get the answers from those.”

“That is because you are human.”

“Yeah, but you’re not. Maybe you could show me?”

Eldred’s eyes sparkled, and his lips twitched. 

“No,” he said. Artemis opened her mouth to argue, but he shook his head. “You are very nearly grown. Too much a woman to unlearn the ways of your kind quickly, and yet you still have the impatience of the young. I cannot show you.” Artemis sighed, disappointed, but the centaur was not finished speaking. He fixed his eyes on her once more and told her, “But I can tell you.”

“Tell me what, exactly?”

“What I know, what I have been told. About you, Fay Child, about your destiny.”

“My destiny?”

“Indeed. As each creature in the forest takes a different path through the trees, so each of us must take a different path through the world. Yours, in particular, is of interest to the centaurs.”

“Why, though?” Artemis asked. When Eldred did not reply, she pushed further. “Because of the Cursed Vaults? I know I’m going to be the one to open them.”

“For one so inept at reading the natural world, you seem very certain of the future.”

“Well, there was a prophecy, you see…”

“Human prophecies are meaningless. The future is not set in stone, it is as changeable and as open to interpretation as the skies themselves,” Eldred shook his white-haired head. “No. You cannot know your path until you take it.”

“But-”

“The natural world exists in a series of patterns and cycles. What has come before is likely to come to pass again. Therefore, if you wish to know more about what is likely to come in the future, you must first look to the past.” Eldred fixed Artemis with another strange look before asking her, “What do you know about Morgan Le Fay?”

“Um,” Artemis frowned, trying to remember anything she could. “You mean Morgana, right? She was a witch, and she lived around the same time as Merlin, I think. She was a dark witch.”

“What do you mean by this?”

“She was evil, she practised dark magic.”

“Magic is neither dark nor light, it is simply magic,” said Eldred. “As for Morgana, she was neither good nor evil, she was simply human, with all the faults and frailties that humanity brings. I am not saying that we centaurs are without our faults, of course, but we do see things as they are, not through men’s narrow view of morality.”

“Right,” Artemis nodded, though she was still confused. “Why are you telling me this?”

“So that you may understand. Morgan Le Fay wished to understand. That is why she came here, to learn from the centaurs, many years ago, when she was still but a foal herself. We centaurs were perhaps less suspicious of the menfolk today in those days, and so we endeavoured to teach her. And, unlike many of your kind, she was able to learn.

“At some point in her teaching, she learned of a great darkness that would one day envelope the world of men. We centaurs have always known of these currents by which wizardkind are so strongly pulled, and we do not interfere in such matters. What will come, will come. What will be, will be.” The centaur paused and shuffled on his front legs before settling and continuing, “Morgan Le Fay did not wish to let such a thing pass. Eventually, she left the herd to seek a way of protecting her kind from the threat this darkness posed, and she did not return for many years, now a woman herself. By then, she said she had found it.”

“Found what?”

“What she had sought to find. Something that may prove to be a salvation, of sorts. Exactly what it was, I do not know. I suspect that the details of what it was have long faded from memory. However, I do know that she asked for the centaurs’ blessing, as she required the protection of the forest to help her in her quest. For whatever reason - old loyalty, or mutual respect, perhaps - the centaurs gave her that blessing, and in thanks, she gave us a jewelled arrow, which she imbued with enchantments that would protect the herd from-”

“From the Cursed Vault,” Artemis said, and Eldred inclined his head. “So, where do I fit into all of this?”

“Morgan Le Fay is long gone, and we centaurs have watched the skies and listened to the secrets of the forest for centuries since,” Eldred told her. “Her discovery has yet to be unearthed, but one day it will be. Nature tells us of a child who will walk the path Morgan Le Fay began to tread, and find the salvation your kind so greatly needs. That is why I call you Fay Child. As for what it means, you will find out in time. All things have their time.” The old centaur looked to the skies once more and smiled serenely. “For now, Fay Child, it is time for you to return to the world of men. You do not belong in the Forest.” 

He picked up his staff and pressed it into the ground again, leaning on it fully and pushing down as he rose up onto his four legs with considerable effort. 

“Thank you,” said Artemis, also rising to her feet. Eldred bowed his head and looked at her again with his forest-coloured eyes.

“Go well.”

The castle grounds were pitch black when the Curse-Breakers returned from the Forbidden Forest, having been escorted most of the way back through the trees by Torvus and Firenze. They made their way back to the castle itself in near silence, broken only to bid each other good night and to promise that they would never tell Bill how close they got to being eaten by an Acromantula in his absence. 

As Chiara and Artemis reached the Hufflepuff common, they began to speak once more, keeping their voices low so as not to wake the rest of their House.

“They have such a fascinating way of life, don’t they?” Chiara whispered. “I’ve never seen anyone using healing herbs the way they did, and their philosophy... They’re remarkable beings.”

“Beasts,” Artemis corrected her. Chiara gave a little shiver, as if she were cold. “Sorry. I didn’t mean… It’s just that they prefer to be called beasts.” 

“They do? Why would anyone want to be called a beast?”

“Because ‘being’ means like a human.”

“I suppose that makes sense. Humans can be just as beastly as animals. More, sometimes,” said Chiara, with a small and sad smile. “And if someone says that they are something, they’re probably right. People tend to know themselves better than anyone else knows them, after all. Why would centaurs be any different?” Artemis shrugged in response, and Chiara gave her a curious look. “What were you talking about with the herd elder?”

“He was saying how our destiny is written in the world around us,” Artemis replied, and Chiara nodded as if she agreed.

“So, did he know about the prophecy?”

“Sort of, I dunno. He said that human prophecies are nonsense, but then he said that I had a destiny to do with opening the Cursed Vaults, because of patterns in stars and leaves, and because Morgan Le Fay already started to walk my path.”

Chiara’s eyebrows shot up. “Morgan Le Fay, as in the Morgan Le Fay?”

“Sounded like it, yeah. Why?”

“Well, she was centuries old.”

“So are the Vaults. Apparently she spent time learning the ways of the centaurs and foresaw the darkness the Vaults would bring.”

“Wait,” Chiara’s pale blue eyes widened, “Morgan le Fay foresaw the Vaults?”

“Yeah,” Artemis frowned at the look on Chiara’s face. “What? What’s the matter?”

“Artemis, I don’t think that’s all Morgan le Fay foresaw. That prophecy, the one you took from the Department of Mysteries… Do you remember what it said on the label?”

“It said ‘Hexley’ and ‘Cursed Vaults’.”

“It said ‘date unknown’ and ‘M.L.F.’,” Chiara told her. “Morgan Le Fay. She might have made that prophecy.”

“She might have. Would a prophecy even keep that long in one of those crystal balls?”

“Oh, yes. Memories can keep for years if stored correctly, centuries even.”

“Eldred the centaur said that she foresaw a way to be saved from the darkness,” said Artemis. “The way to actually break the curses for good, maybe?”

“Maybe. It’s definitely something to look into,” Chiara nodded. “The Oracler you know from the Department of Mysteries might know if there are any other prophecies made by Morgan Le Fay.”

“Olivia Green?”

“Why don’t you write to her and ask?”

“Because I stole a prophecy from her place of work and risked her losing her job.”

“Ah.”

“Besides,” said Artemis, “it’s not an Oracler we need to look into Morgan Le Fay. It’s a historian.”

Artemis found Corey in the library the following morning. She sat down on the desk beside him and dropped a Chocolate Frog onto the book he was reading.

“What’s that for?” he asked, picking up the sweet and hiding it in his bag. 

“I thought you might like Chocolate Frogs,” Artemis shrugged. “Because pretty much everyone likes chocolate, and you strike me as the sort of person who might like collecting the historical witch and wizard cards.”

Corey’s face split into a grin. “I do like both of those things, actually. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. How’s the research going?”

“Pretty well, actually. Thankfully, Rowan managed to translate most of your brother’s notes, because the codes he uses are way beyond my ability. I’ve given the rest to Bill Weasley to decode.”

“Good idea.”

“Meanwhile, I’ve been looking into the origins of this Cabal.”

“The origins?”

“They say that if you want to know the future, you should examine the past, so that’s what I’m doing.”

Just the day before, Artemis would have thought that this was a ridiculous idea, but after her encounter with the centaur the night before, she almost understood Corey’s logic.

“Okay,” she said, frowning. “So, where do they originate from?”

“Right here, actually,” said Corey. “At Hogwarts. They were founded in the first half of the nineteenth century by a witch named Claudine Fortinbras.”

“Fortinbras.” The name sounded familiar to Artemis. “Why do I know that name?”

“She wrote some books. Rowan read them as part of her research. She was interested in maps.”

“Maps! Yes, of course,” Artemis nodded emphatically as she remembered Rowan’s thirteen-year-old face looking up at her from a large, dusty tome. She lowered her voice as Madam Pince threw her a dirty look. “She was a Professor at the school, wasn’t she, this Fortinbras?”

“Charmsmistress, yes. A remarkable witch, really,” Corey told her, his eyes lighting up. “She published papers in multiple fields of magic, including Arithmancy and Alchemy, and in two different languages, as well.”

“What languages?”

“English and French. She was French, she went back to France after an incident involving her search for the Cursed Vaults. The Potionsmaster died, and two students were injured.”

“She had students helping her look for the Cursed Vaults?” Artemis said, her eyes widening. Corey nodded again.

“Yeah. She and the Potionsmaster were the only adults, the rest of the group were talented students. They called themselves the Ronde, which in French means…”

“Circle, I know. So, they were the original Cabal?”

“Yes, actually. The Fortinbras family is an old Pureblood French family, and she believed that if you traced their lineage back far enough, you’d get back to the person who first created the Vaults,” Corey flicked through a pile of notes, as if looking for the exact details. “I haven’t been able to go back that far yet, parts of the family tree are missing from the book I found, but anyway… Apparently there was some French prophecy about the person to open the Vaults. It mentioned this Ronde, as well as a sacrifice and an inheritance. She thought it was about her, that she was the one who would ‘inherit’ the power inside the Vaults.”

“She was wrong,” said Artemis. “That prophecy is about me. I stole it from the Department of Mysteries, but it smashed before we could fully translate it. But, we’ve been looking into it, and it looks like the prophecy was made by Morgan Le Fay.”

“As in the Dark Witch Morgana?”

“Yeah, her. What do you know about her?”

“About as much as anyone. She was the sister of King Arthur, who was a Muggle, but she was a witch, and a dark witch at that.” 

“Well, according to the centaurs - and the prophecy, too, I guess - she found out about the Vaults somehow and she found way to destroy them for good,” Artemis told Corey. He tilted his head to one side. 

“So, would you like me to look into her some more for you?”

“I’d love it if you could.”

“I definitely could. I have a whole book about her, after all. Rowan left it for me before she…” Corey’s voice tailed off and he cleared his throat. “I hadn’t read it yet, because… Well, you know.”

Artemis swallowed. “Yeah, I know.”

“Well, now it looks like I’ve got no excuse not to,” he laughed hard, almost too hard. “All this talk of prophecies, and Rowan managed to pick out the one book we’d need over a whole year later. Funny, isn’t it?”

But though Artemis smiled in response, she didn’t think it was funny at all. After all, Rowan always had been the one to know exactly what she needed.

[l-e-morgan-author]

Just read Podkayne of Mars, Robert Heinlein. It's a reread, and I rate it three stars; Heinlein's usual excellence, but the pacing felt off and the ending was executed worse than I'm used to getting from him, though some of his endings can land a bit weirdly. It felt just as inexplicable as the first time I read it. Follow my Goodreads to see what else I'm up to! I plan to reread Narnia next, in company with @anchored-trident and a few others. I need to squeeze in Goodnight Mister Tom (Michelle Magorian) somewhere in the next week or so as well. I've never read it before, but a friend strongly recommended it, and lent it to me, a while back, and I still haven't read it. I like the typesetting, though. Pleasing to read. (In common with a lot of pulp scifi, too. Most of the ways people print ERB, for instance, are pleasant to read.) (I may be a slight formatting nerd.)

Poddy was not on my list of books to read this year. xD Nor is the other Heinlein I plan to reread soon, The Puppet Masters.