June Prompts 🌼 Randivor
Stewards of Fox Hollow
Cast and extras are posted to A03
The fruit stand that she had passed for nigh six months seemed to have developed a chronic lean this week. She passed it twice already when she could take it no more. After a quick stop at the IKEA for a bit of lumber she returned to the stand.
Tires crunching on the gravel road as she pulled of on the shoulder.
Mrs. Murphy was there, a short stout woman who eyed Eivor with a side eye and an inquisitive brow before she carried herself off with a humph.
Needless to say Mrs. Murphy wasn’t as impressed with her particular brand of not so subtle lesbianism as Edeet had been. But that was okay, she wasn’t here to flirt—
The woman who sat at the fruit stand, in the shade of an ancient Alder looked up with bright eyes and an even brighter smile. For a brief moment, Eivor was starstruck, her body tingling as heat appeared on her cheeks and neck. And then she blinked, and the woman softened into something not less stunning, but more herself…
Eivor smiled.
“Are there Fae that inhabit fruit stands?” She asked.
The pretty woman almost fell off her chair.
“Oh! Sorry about that I didn’t mean...”
The woman laughed as she caught herself on the stand that was leaning.
“Sorry, you startled me. What were you saying?”
“Uh… I was asking if Fae usually runs a fruit stand by the side of the road. B-because you are pretty enough to be one.” She finished, and then laughed nervously.
“Ah hah! Charmer.”
Eivor didn’t know what it was about the wee folk around these parts. Everyone of them seemed to ache to be seen, but the moment she acknowledged it they all got nervous. To be honest that was more than peculiar.
Like the giant that had been quietly watching her around the hollow. A gentle man with a face that said he had seen some things, but when she looked at him, he froze, his features edging towards fear.
She hadn’t gotten the courage to ask him about it yet. So they pretended not to see one another.
There was a horse that kept moving her tools too…
“I stopped for the lean.” Eivor said and pushed on the stand gently.
The woman blinked, squinted, judged quietly and then smiled. “Tis only a small lean.”
“Well, now.” Eivor nodded sagely, pushing blond hair back from her face. “But left to its own designs it can become a big problem, and then one day you are trying to gather your fallen fruit before the Púca gets it.”
That seemed to hit a nerve as the woman’s face tightened, and her eyes swept the area before she growled. “That is if it weren’t him that did it himself.”
Eivor gave an amused huff as the woman’s face showed surprise just after that vehement protest.
“You know about the Púca?”
“Well, yeah. Doesn’t everybody?” She she put her hands on the woman's fruit stand and tested its stability and strength with a rattle.
“I can fix this.” She nodded.
“That way when Frank comes by you can flaunt your new stability. Though I imagine daring a Púca isn’t a very bright idea.”
The woman laughed.
“You’d be right about that.”
“Can I help you fix your stand?”
A new car pulled up and a beefy man got out. His eyes weighed if he were interrupting.
Eivor stood back and gestured to the stand.
The woman looked from Eivor to the new man.
“Liam!” The woman said and she moved around the stand to pick up a bag which she offered to him. “I was so pleased with this berry harvest.” She let out a breath.
The man looked love sick the moment bright green eyes turned on him. His big shoulders relaxed, his hands which had been wringing his cap softened.
“Merry.” His voice was so warm as he reached for the bag he was being handed. He peered into it and breathed in the dark sweetness.
“Hmm, smells perfect, and is quite a bit too!”
“My mother will be deeply pleased.”
She isn’t the only one. Eivor quietly thought, looking at Liam when he bobbed his head at Eivor.
“Am I interrupting?”
Ah, there… she thought she might get out of it for once.
“No.” Eivor shook her head.” She gestured to the stand.
“I um. I fix things.” She said, and got a look from Liam that said more than he knew it did.
Merry saw it and reached out to touch his arm. His shoulders, which had been slowly rising like a beast's hackles, dropped again.
“Eivor was just going to help me fix my stand.” Merry said with an ease that was one part charm and one part magic… at least.
“I could help.” Liam offered.
“No, that is okay Liam, your mother is waiting for her berries, and I am waiting for my jam.”
He smiled again.
Merry walked Liam to his car, sat him in it and stood nearby waving while he got himself under enough control to reverse back out onto the road.
Eivor was measuring the stand when Merry came back.
She released the tape measure and looked at Merry.
“He doesn't know does he?”
Merry raised a brow pausing as she looked Eivor over and gave a secretive smile.
“About Frank?”
Eivor gave a soft snort. “Yeah.”
“You are right, I think everyone knows about Frank.”
Eivor looked at the apples on Merry’s cart thoughtfully. “Do you think Frank will like apples?”
Merry raised a brow, her expression reserved.
“Why give him an apple?”
“Becasue he is horse shaped.” Eivor shrugged simply.
Merry chuckled. “I think our resident disaster horse would love an apple.” She picked up the basket, pressing it into Eivor’s arms. Her hand rested on Eivor’s strong bicep as she did this.
“I can’t take these.” Eivor protested.
“Why not?” Merry was ever more curious about this new woman of Wicklow. Just like every other citizen of Laragh and its surrounding countryside.
“I haven’t paid for them.” Eivor tried to give them back.
Merry put a hand up in protest.
“It is my payment to you, for the lean.”
Eivor looked at the apples and then they both looked at the fruit stand.
“I can do that.”
It was two hours later, and nearly fourteen cars after Liam that Eivor finished Merry’s stand. She stood back to look at it, feeling proud of the craftsmanship. The hand carved curves, and the restructured stand was handsome as it was strong.
Merry stood beside Eivor admiring it with her.
She was about to say something when a familiar shape appeared.
A shape that Eivor caught and turned towards. There wasn’t even a hesitation as everything about Wicklow’s resident hardware lesbian lit up with delight.
“Hey!” Eivor said like she was greeting an old friend.
Oh no… Merry thought.
The heron looked disinterested, going right into preening pretty pinions. Showing off a long elegant wing.
Eivor snickered.
“What is it?” Merry asked.
Eivor chuckled. “That’s my friend. Sexy Legs.”
Merry and Eivor both watched as the bird pivoted so quickly her legs tangled and she went down, hard… face first.
Eivor winced but chuckled softly.
Merry raised a brow, a hand coming to her mouth as she stifled a gasp, and a question if The Lady of Quiet Waters were alright.
The heron shook itself out, and went into aggressive preening.
“Yeah, that’s my bird.” Eivor said with a chuckle.
“There are many such birds in Wicklow.”
“That may be true, but this one is mine. Look how she is embarrassed now.”
Eivor's smile was filled with affection.
“This has happened before?” Merry asked, a softer smile on her lips now.
Eivor looked up then and blinked at Merry.
Because somehow that didn't feel like a simple question.
“Don't they all?” Eivor asked.
Doing exactly what Merry had done earlier.
Because now it felt personal.
Sharing something so revealing about Sexy Legs felt bad.
“That was definitely an 'ah.'”
The sound warm as summer fruit.
“You've become fond of her.”
Eivor's eyes drifted back toward the heron.
The bird was still preening.
Though perhaps not quite as aggressively now.
Eivor took out her wallet, and for a moment Merry thought she might have somehow offended Eivor. But rather than money, the woman brought out a not so pristine feather from her wallet.
Eivor stripped her fingers over it, and it looked almost like new again.
Sexy Legs stilled, head turned away, but this far eye watching them like she wasn't.
Merry was sure if birds could blush, The Lady of Quiet Streams would reveal herself to the dangerously observant Sergeant of Fox Hollow.
“You carry her feather?” Merry asked, both surprised and pleased.
“She left it for me after I gave her a fish.” Eivor murmured holding the feather up as if it were a prized possession.
Sexy Legs twisted around, dropping her head as if she were looking at the ground with new interest. And them with less.
Eivor smirked but said nothing. She put the feather back in her wallet before she adjusted the basket of apples.
“I should be getting home. I told Bork I wouldn’t be gone more than three hours.”
Her eyes shifting from the heron to Eivor, sure she had seen the bird roll its eye so hard she might have swooned a little.
“Mmm. My Wolfhound.” Eivor nodded.
“I asked him if he wanted to come, but he said hed rather nap with Patrick.”
Merry blinked. “W-whos Patrick?”
Eivor smiled at her. “A friend.”
Merry was mystified as the Nordic Valkyrie of a woman got into her old beat up pick up and rumbled down the road. Tossing a hand out the open window.
“Thanks for the apples! I’ll tell you how Frank likes them!”
Merry was watching the truck rattle off before she turned to find Randvi there looking worse for wear.
“Did you know?” Merry asked.
“About Patrick?” Randvi asked.
Merry gave a secretive smile.”Yeah.” She huffed amused.
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