can you please ship me with someone omg?? i'll give you freedom to choose WHOEVER ok, i trust you <3 ok so; I'm a stubborn, humoristic 19-year-old with a passion for art and music. i LOVE nature aka i live on the countryside/seaside of norway so i have no choice, aand i am v talkative and i love discussing things like history, literature and politics
(Note: this is weirdly lopsided and disproportionate and I’m just so sorry tbh it’s 90% intro and 10% romance and I am a MESS forgive me)
You knew Esme since you both were tiny, though not particularly well. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that you knew of her. Your family was among the 300 that lived in close-knit community of the Black Patch under the rule of Esau Smith, and Esme’s family was constantly traveling, but sometimes they’d settle temporarily in the Black Patch if they were down on their luck, or during the winter, when times were particularly hard. And besides that, there were always fairs, and weddings, and the massive unbroken chain of Romani gossip connecting vardos all over the country. So even if her curly hair and lovely face were mostly a blur in your memory, by fifteen you knew more or less everything about her, including that she’d beaten Ronnie Smits in a horserace, and that she was rumored to always have a knife in her pocket, and that she’d sworn she would never marry. That last fact was interesting, but not enough to make you seek her out.
After all, you were pretty busy in your early teenage years. You felt between the urge to ramble about, exploring the deeper corners of the park and paddling through the canals beyond. You got your dress torn up by black briars, your hair cut short to prevent it tangling in low-hanging branches, your mother worried almost all the time. But it was a good life.
At around thirteen, though, you happened across a copy of A Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by pure chance, having traded it for a hair ribbon you know would be wasted on you. Which pretty much changed your entire existence. You became obsessed with the book, the way it let you into worlds you’d never been to before, the feeling of freedom that came with that. Before that book, you felt like there was nothing outside the Black Patch you much cared to know about--cities were ugly and dirty and full of gadjes that couldn’t cook to save their lives--but fuck, cities had books.
After that, it was only a matter of time and much pleading before Esau finally let you ride along with him to oversee the handling of Letty Smits’s court case. You behaved so well--suspiciously well, actually--that he let you come with him on other errands after that, legal arguments mostly, but sometimes dealing with other business, too. You were always so quiet and so grateful that he either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the two things that comprised your city education: books and rage.
Books, because you devoured every shelf in the library like it was your second job, faking a name and address easy to get your card, becoming friends with all the librarians. Rage, because the court cases were usually bullshit, and built on the kind of witnesses you wouldn’t trust to watch a good dog, much less trust with the five years in the life of a person getting locked up. Rage also because no matter how good Esau was as a horse dealer, he never got the respect he deserved from the toffs that bought the animals he’d taken such care with. And when Esau died in 1901, with you at the age of sixteen, those two things combined in one of the most potent events of your life: the summer election of his successor.
The camp swelled to almost twice its normal size with visitors, mostly there to mourn Esau’s passing, pay their respects, and attend the funeral, but also there to observe the rise to power of whoever would replace him. Esme’s family, the Lees, were among them.
Almost immediately, you clashed over who should get to vote on Esau’s successor. At first, it was just a cluster of you younger ones sitting around a fire, shooting the shit about who got married, who was going to get married, etc. But then the matter of the election came up, and it was mostly you arguing with Aishe that only permanent dwellers should get the vote, Esme sitting back and saying nothing. At the last minute, her aunt called her away, and she sauntered off, though not before giving a parting shot, exquisitely articulate, that made your ears burn. It settled the debate for the night.
The next morning, you got up ready to fight her. Not with fists, of course, but she was wrong. Why should someone who only came by the Patch once every two years get as much of a say in its future as someone who lived and died by its very existence? And why should she care? She’d said only last year that France was better, that we’d all be better off uprooting and crossing the Channel to a better life, that--
“Do you want Henty to win or not?” Esme demanded.
“What?” You had built up a rhythm. You had a speech all planned out. This was not in the speech.
“The first Queen of the Black Patch. You can’t deny she’d be good at it. Or are you one of those girls that think women aren’t suited?”
“How the fuck is that relevant?”
“Look around.” Esme gestured. “Those on the Black Patch have a loyalty to her, yes, but they’re also traditionalists.”
“Enough of them. And they may well vote for Tobar Mason. He’s kind enough, but he’s too fucking complacent. If there’s a snake in the grass, he’ll not notice until it’s too late. Is that what you want?”
“Visitors are hardly much different,” you manage to say.
“But three dozen of them are direct relations of Henty, and will vote on that alone.”
You both look over the camp, turning the numbers over in your head. Fuck, you didn’t want to say this, but.
“I am.” With a smirk, Esme flicked her braid over her shoulder and began to saunter away.
“Wait!” you called after her.
You wanted a round two and that was all.
Later that night, you asked around, and found that Esme was still sticking to the oath that she’d never get married. That was a relief, for reasons you didn’t wish to examine too closely. It made sense that she’d need to warn men off, of course. Who wouldn’t want to marry her? Behind the sharp eyes and even sharper tongue, there was a mind, and of course beyond that, her dark hair seemed to have a life of its own and her body bloomed curves that made you, what was it, envious?
You found ways to be around her as time went on, even though you couldn’t find ways to talk to her properly. You were appalled to find that when you and she did talk, it was in snippets of politics, arguing back and forth like siblings, a tone you couldn’t seem to maneuver your way out of. She had a more agile tongue, but you had a broader base of knowledge. She’d seen more of the world, but you had studied more of it. She had the most luscious dark hair that refused to stay contained and you ran your hand through your own smooth mane if she ever looked at you for too long. And talked faster.
As the votes were announced and Henty made queen, she looked at you, cutting through the crowd, victorious but not smug, smiling like you were in on a joke, and. And you wished the funeral wasn’t already over, wished you had paid more attention to your gossipy aunt, wished you could figure out a way to hold onto her. Perhaps that was why you were the only one that seemed to notice when she slipped away from all the post-election revelry, climbing the shoulder of a high hill even as the drinks still flowed and the music went on. It wasn’t like her at all.
You followed her, of course. It was what you did, what you’d become used to. When you crested the hill, and found her sitting just slightly over the other side, you both had a decent enough view of the campground to the west and stark view of the moonlight getting cut to pieces by a thousand trees, turning the leaf-strewn forest floor into something like lace. The murmur of the river’s dark waters as it cut away to the south, where it would soon rejoin the canals, made the spot seem dangerous, delicious.
“Funny you should find this spot,” you said, and almost winced at yourself. Again, again, the slightly aggressive. For no reason at all. “This is one of my favorite spots, I mean. Just close enough, but nobody will ever think to look up and try to see me.”
“Yes.” You sat down next to her, imitating her hunched pose, hugging your knees. Neither of you were fragile twigs, but the night winds were nothing gentle, either. She moved a little closer to you. You checked yourself halfway to a pointed comment about her lack of a coat and stumbled on something slightly, slightly less prickly.
Her dark eyes continued in their slow sweep across the landscape below. She didn’t speak, and for a moment, you thought she wouldn’t reply. “Remembering it.”
She turned and gave you a sharp look of suspicion. You allowed a gentle curiosity to show on your face, and she subsided. The way the leaves rustled...it was some kind of a softer night. Maybe you were lucky, maybe she was just tired. Her reply was an honest one.
“It’s the only place I’ve ever seen twice from the inside.”
“Owning it, having it, belonging to it. Like a home, even if it’s not legally ours.”
You added, “Yours, if you want it.”
Esme makes a soft sound in reply, and then the night wind sharpens. She shivers. “There was this house in Lichfield...I thought we could stay this time. Dad said he had it all sorted this time. It had a green front door, a stove in the kitchen, and space for horses...Now he says there's another place.”
“A river’s not the same as a stove,” you acknowledged, “but you can come back to it.”
“Yeah.” She seemed satisfied with being understood.
But you weren't satisfied. You picked at the long grass, braided it together with restless fingers, finally lay on your back with a bit of a flop and looked up at the stars. After a moment’s curious look, she followed suit, a stray curl of hair brushing against your shoulder.
“When is the next time I'm going to see you?” you said. Things felt right with her, for the first time, like your cracked the puzzle, and now she was going away. It seemed particularly cruel to have it on the last night, of all times.
“You know it's not up to me.”
“Still. You should come back soon.”
She turned her head to you, pale cheek pillowed on her dark hair. “Okay. Are you going to miss me, or are you going to miss arguing with me?”
A smile broke out over her face that made the corners of her eyes crinkle up in real affection. “No.”
You took a long, slow breath. “I'm going to miss you.”
“Okay.” She reached out and tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear, but didn't draw her hand back, fingertips lingering on your jaw.
When you kissed her, she smelled like wildflowers and the earth. Her glorious hair was so soft under your hands, and presently her dress was soft underneath you too.
