I meant to finish this for ROTG Fave Ship Week, Prompt #2: Mythology, but then life happened and it didn't get done in time. Still, better very, very late than never?
...
Tia advertises herself as a 'practitioner of positive magicks', these days. She knows she catches some flak - snide comments about 'fluffy bunnies', the occasional bad review on FaceBookOfShadows or Yowl from people who came in looking for curse ingredients - for her angel card readings and fairy garden offerings, but she's been at this for long enough that it doesn't really bother her anymore. She's seen what the 'dark side' has to offer, and honestly, it's a little underwhelming.
Besides, her garden never gets bugs or blight, and there's never a line when she stops for coffee. She must be doing something right.
She tags along to circles mostly because Sandra invites her. Tia's got nothing against Gaia, but then, she's never gone in much for gods in general. In her opinion, they’re a little like cats. She’s not sure what they really have to do with the craft, other than contributing to the aesthetic, and giving them treats (or, in the case of gods, offerings) just encourages them.
Tia can't resist a party, though, and the summer solstice is the biggest party until Samhain. The potlatch is always to die for, too, especially if St. North brings his famous, if unseasonal, gingerbread.
St. North and his gingerbread are, thankfully, in attendance this year, as are Jackie and her punch, and Aster and her egg salad. The rest of the usual suspects all seem to be in attendance - Tia even catches sight of Koz lurking in a darkened corner, despite the fact that she's pretty sure they've dedicated themselves to Trickster - as well as a few new faces. A couple of teenagers, the girl who looks like she's humouring the boy's wide-eyed enthusiasm; a cluster of four middle-aged ladies who came with velvet robes and a bad case of the giggles; a scholarly-looking older gentleman who gives the impression that at any moment he might whip out a pipe and start puffing on it thoughtfully; and a statuesque woman of indeterminate age in a green silk shift that ripples like a field of long grass in a high wind when she moves, which is not often. She stands a little apart from the crowd, surveying the buffet table and the lawn with a gaze that would seem casual and unconcerned if it weren't for the intensity of her dark eyes.
"Is that one of Koz' relatives?" Tia asks Sandra, nudging her with one elbow to get her to look in the stranger's direction. If anyone should know anything about Koz' relatives, it's bound to be Sandra.
But Sandra just shrugs, and then gestures towards the table, already groaning with food. Tia glances from the tempting spread to the woman in green, and makes up her mind.
"I'm going to go find out," she says. Sandra shrugs again, reaching up to snag a samosa off one of the plates Tia's carrying before making a beeline for the table.
The woman in green seems surprised when Tia approaches her, as though she hadn't expected it, even though Tia had watched her watching the party all the way over. Her long, dark hair falls in shining waves to the small of her back, her proud nose and olive skin betraying some Mediterranean heritage. Probably not a relative of Koz', then. Up close, she's even taller than she'd seemed, towering over Tia by at least two full feet. Somehow, still, even when she's literally looking down at Tia, she doesn't seem to be looking down on her.
Tia offers the plates she's holding almost as an excuse - no, wait, definitely as an excuse. Sandra would tell her off for being such an insufferable busybody - after she was done debriefing Tia for all the gossip, of course. "Sorry, I thought you were a friend of mine. Well, a relative of a friend of mine," she babbles, laughing to cover her sudden attack of nerves. There's something deeply unsettling about being the sole focus of the stranger's attention. "I noticed you didn't seem all that interested in the food, but I made samosas and some veggie pakoras, and I happen to think they're my best batch yet, I'll have to come up with some other recipe if I want to top myself for Samhain, maybe something with pumpkin in it? I know it's a cliché, but -"
Tia's tongue tangles into a knot in her mouth when the stranger reaches one elegant, long-fingered hand down and selects a pakora from the plate Tia holds out. She brings it up to eye level, gazing intently at it as she turns it that way and this, and Tia notices that her talon-like nails are black - not like they've been painted or shellacked, but like they're made of black horn.
Tia's read plenty of books where characters have been described as having teeth like strings of pearls, but this is the first time she's met someone who seems to deserve it. The stranger's teeth, when she opens her mouth to take a bite of the pakora, are brilliant white, somehow slightly iridescent, and seem just a little too sharp for being set into a human-looking face.
Tia realises she'd just thought 'human-looking' instead of 'human' at the same time as the stranger sinks those unusually sharp teeth into Tia's - there's no other word for it - offering. The stranger's eyes sink closed as her mouth does, and a little smile curls it upwards at the corners.
"That is delicious," she says, swallowing, and Tia feels heat rising up the back of her neck. The stranger's voice is surprisingly deep, smooth and dark as velvet.
"Oh, good," Tia babbles. "Do you like the spice blend? I hope I can get it right again, I only figured it out through trial and error, and it was a whole lot of error -"
The stranger turns her smile on Tia, opening her eyes. Tia had thought they were dark before, but somehow they're not. They're a deep, rich, emerald, though no less intense than they had been.
"I'm certain you will," she says, and there's a strange quirk to her smile, a curious lilt to her voice, as though there's more behind her words than just a simple hope or reassurance.
Tia tries to swallow, realises how dry her mouth's become.
"Would - would you like a samosa, too?" she manages, and the stranger smiles at that, wide and white and real, before reaching down and taking one.
...
Sandra looks up from the buffet when Tia slams down her plates on the table. Both Sandra's eyebrows shoot towards her hairline, and she smiles expectantly.
"She's not a relative of Koz'," Tia says, almost snarls. She doesn't understand why she's suddenly so angry. "She calls herself Serafina, and she's stunning and awe-inspiring and weird, and I think she might be Gaia in disguise."
Tia hadn't thought it would be possible for Sandra's eyebrows to climb any higher, and yet somehow she manages it.
"I don't know either!" Tia complains. "But there's something going on with her. And it's midsummer, and we're throwing a party just to celebrate and invoke Gaia, and, I mean, if gods like Wiseman can turn up in human guise to test the faith of their followers, then why not her? And I think -" She has to stop and swallow hard. Her mouth is still dry, despite the two margaritas she'd poured down her throat. "I think I just made her an offering."
Sandra's eyebrows drop back down so fast that Tia can almost hear the thunderclap. The smile that crosses her sweet face is incongruously wicked.
"No," Tia says. "No. I know what you're thinking, and no."
Sandra's smile grows, if possible, even wider.
...
Tia's angel cards stop talking to her the next day.
She's just sat down to do a reading - for a paying customer, no less - but when she lays out the cards in a spread, every single card she flips is blank. The little hand-painted angel figures, with all their wings and eyes and rich robes, are gone.
"I'm - I'm terribly sorry," Tia says to the woman tapping her foot impatiently against the floor. She checks the deck - still full of painted angels - and gives it a shuffle, before laying down another spread. "Let's try that again."
The first card she flips is blank.
"Is this supposed to happen?" Tia's client asks. There's an edge in her voice like she's ready to get up and walk out.
Tia flips all of the cards. Blank, blank, blank.
Tia flops back in her chair, and stares at the empty spread in front of her in disbelief.
She ends up refunding the client. As she's showing the woman the door, apologising profusely, she happens to look down.
There's a zucchini on her front step.
...
Tia tries reading for herself. Tries a little crystal healing. Tries to summon a fairy guide.
It doesn't matter what she does. There's radio silence from beyond the veil. Whatever Tia was in contact with before, it's packed up and walked out on her.
Tia is mundane.
...
Sandra arrives in record time. When Tia answers the door, she's holding two acorn squash and giving Tia a puzzled look.
"What're those for?" Tia asks. Sandra shrugs, gesturing to Tia's front step, and Tia barely bites back a groan.
"Excellent! This is just what I needed." She throws her hands up in the air, before tugging on her hair with both fists. "Sandra, you're the expert. How do I get rid of a god's favour?"
Sandra's eyebrows shoot up, and she gives Tia a warning look.
"Ooh, I know, but - I don't know what else to do!" She steps back to let Sandra in to the entryway, sitting down on the lowest of the stairs. "She's scaring off everything else, and I don't know anything about nature workings, and I don't want a patron god, and I'm not doing any quests or missions, and she keeps giving me vegetables -" She cuts herself off with a strangled, frustrated scream into her hand.
Sandra purses her lips, and Tia can tell she's trying not to laugh. "It's not funny," she protests, aware that she's whining.
Sandra shifts one of the acorn squash to the other arm so she can waggle a hand in disagreement. Tia sighs.
"All right, maybe it's a little funny," she mutters, and pushes herself up off the steps. "Well, are you planning to stand out here laughing at me all night, or are you going to come up and help me?"
...
Sandra's something of an expert on summonings, divinations, and spirit communications, but even she can’t get anything from Tia’s usual suspects. The shit-eating grin slowly fades from her face the longer she can't get any signal, and she finally sits back with a frown, stubbing out a cone of incense with her thumb.
"See? I told you!" Tia complains, waving an arm towards the chalk circles and little piles of offerings that Sandra's scattered across her kitchen floor. "It's like having a shark swimming around! All the little fishes got scared off and now they're hiding!" She fixes Sandra with a glower that melts the delighted grin that scrolls across Sandra's face. "And don't you dare make some crack about there being plenty of fish in the sea."
Sandra shrugs both shoulders, and then climbs up from where she's been sitting on the floor. She gathers up her divination kit, and starts towards the door.
"Oh, wait! Please, you're not just giving up, are you?" Tia runs after her, catching Sandra just as she's about to step out into the stairwell. "Sandra, I'm serious. All of my magic is gone! What am I going to do?"
Sandra pauses, with Tia's hand on her elbow, and looks up. There's no hint of a smile on her face as she looks deeply, searchingly, into Tia's eyes, and says, "Talk to her."
Tia stammers over an attempt at a comeback, but Sandra only pats her arm and gently prises her grip free, making her way out the apartment door and down the stairs.
...
The next morning, Tia can't get her front door open for vines. A perfect, round, blood-red tomato thwacks her in the knuckles when she tries to wrench the door free.
She leaves the shop closed for the day, heads upstairs to find her chalk.
...
Gaia appears with a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning, fog rolling off of her and filling Tia's small apartment. She's the same as she'd appeared at midsummer, and yet different as well - she hadn't sported the heavy, curved black horns that are tangled in with her masses of thick dark hair, and her eyes had not had snake-pupil slits, and she had not been accompanied by a distant sound of rain and birdsong.
She appears triumphant in Tia's apartment, arms spread wide and a look of self-satisfied benevolence on her face. It very quickly disappears when one of Tia's decorative pillows bounces off the side of her head.
"Ow!" Gaia says, her beautiful deep voice echoing with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, as she reaches down to pick up the pillow. "What the -"
She seems to notice, for the first time, Tia standing in the middle of the room, breathing hard and with another decorative pillow ready to throw.
"Go away!" Tia yells. She's pretty sure this isn't what Sandra had meant when she'd said 'talk to her', but...it's talking. Well. Yelling. Same difference. "I was perfectly happy and fine without you! You drove away all my spirits, ruined my business, trapped me in my own home - I don't need a patron! I don't want your favour! Leave me alone!"
Gaia blinks. If Tia weren't well acquainted with the legendary arrogance of gods, she'd almost think that Gaia looks shell-shocked.
"You approached me," she rumbles, dangerously. "You alone recognised me at my own festival, you made me an offering -"
"Only because I thought you were pretty!" Tia blurts, and then claps both hands over her mouth.
Gaia's darkening expression suddenly switches to one of confusion.
"Lonely! I meant to say lonely!" Tia babbles, flapping her hands nervously. Gaia ducks one particularly wild swing with the pillow Tia's still holding. "You didn't have anybody with you, and I was just trying to be friendly, and - I don't need a god," she says, firmly, planting both hands on her hips and trying to look confident and menacing.
Gaia looms over her, her expression pure befuddlement.
"I am beauty itself, in its purest form, wild and untamed and awe-inspiring -" she starts, and then cuts herself off. "You think I'm pretty?"
"I'm - I'm very sorry if I've insulted you," Tia says. "But, uh, yes?"
Gaia looks down at Tia, almost wonderingly. Tia stares back, defiant.
Gaia clears her throat.
"You may not need a god," she says, enunciating every word carefully and not meeting Tia's eyes. "But how about a girlfriend?"
It's Tia's turn to be dumbfounded.
"Um," she says.
"Think about it," Gaia says. There's an evergreen hue to her stark cheekbones that Tia thinks, suddenly, crazily, must be a blush. Gaia clears her throat, throws her shoulders back, and shakes out her hair. "I shall expect your answer by Samhain," she adds, imperiously, and goes a darker green when Tia rolls her eyes.
"I'll think about it," Tia says, finally. She looks up at Gaia's strange green eyes, and finds herself compelled to add, "But...it would help my decision if you courted me? Not with vegetables," she adds, hurriedly.
Gaia's still green, but a wicked smile slashes a scimitar-curve across her face.
"Well, then," she says. "It seems I have my work cut out for me. Very well, little mortal."
"That's not exactly the most endearing pet name," Tia interrupts, but Gaia ploughs valiantly on.
"Prepare yourself to be courted," she says, and then shoots Tia a wink that leaves Tia, momentarily, speechless. "Expect my visitation!"
And then, with another flash of lightning and clap of thunder, she's gone again.
Tia stands in the middle of the living room for a full fifteen minutes before she can wrap her head around what just happened.
lets out one long s c r e a m.
mem this is so !!! beautiful i’m !!!!!!! UGH THIS IS HONESTLY exactly what i needed just some unapologetic fluff like look at these !! gays holding hands !! what the heck man !!!!
I found these in my treasured wips folder, tho can’t remember what I was gonna do with them so here we are unfinished. What’s your flavour of “don’t touch my wife” ??
on one hand there’s frostednature, THE otp THE OG otp, buT on another hand... there’s gardenfairy NBDJD TOOTH AND HER WOULD BE SUCH A POWER COUPLE I JUST— HUFF
46. “Shut up, I am a delight!” with Toothiana and Seraphina.
“It’s my turn to host the Guardian meet-up, and we’re going to have to lay down some house rule- Seraphina, are you even listening?”
Tooth hands on hips, hovered high enough in the air that theoretically, she should be at Seraphina’s direct eye height. And yet, Sera had a way of looking down the bridge of her nose that always made Tooth feel somewhat like a tiny, screeching parakeet instead of the fearsome Sister of Flight that she was.
“No.”
At least she was honest. Sprawled nonchalantly over two human sized couches, Sera’s hair had transformed half the room into an animate kelp forest of writhing, windswept tendrils. Butterflies and birdsong drifted out from the mass. One eye was closed to allow a napping beetle to perch there, and the other was half-lidded, lambent. She stuck out her tongue and a worm slithered down her chin.
“Seraphina.” Tooth was in despair. The Guardians were all aware of their relationship, but the last time they’d all seen her had been some thousands of years ago when the Tooth Palace had still been called Punjam Hy Loo, and poor Jack had never met her at all. “Please take this seriously - I want them to like you.”
“I want them to fear me,” said Sera flatly, idly kicking a lounging leopard off the arm of the couch so she could rest her stained brown feet on it. Her toes, more fingers than toes, flexed. “And love me. And do as I say.” She grinned, suddenly, and Tooth huffed.
“Quoting that fucking movie has to stop or I swear by the moon that I will leave you and never come back,” Tooth threatened. As ever, her threat washed blindly over Seraphina with all the effect of a pebble in the face of an avalanche.
“Ooh, the Tooth Fairy swears,” Sera teased. At Tooth’s death-glare, she shrugged lazily and continued, “I like the fluffy human. He reminds me of an uncle I had once. Before Father ate him, that is.”
“Pitch Black has some weird habits,” Tooth agreed, flitting down to perch on one of Sera’s raised knees. Her feet dangled down and rested on Sera’s warm stomach. One of Sera’s hands carefully closed around her ankle, petting her feathers. Tooth sighed.
“This is going to be a disaster,” she lamented. “They’re going to end up trying to stage another intervention.”
“There’s nowhere on Earth that they can hide from me,” Sera asserted confidently, “Don’t worry, little bird. They’ll love me.”
Tooth looked at her dubiously. Just as she finished speaking, an odd expression crossed Sera’s face and she leaned over to cough. There was a strained moment, and then Sera hacked up a small pile of bones, one of which looked suspiciously similar to a human’s.
Tooth stared at the vile mess and swore she felt her feathers deflate at the idea of cleaning it up.
“Sorry,” said Sera, with a complete lack of remorse. “I ate a child on the way here.”
“That’s EXACTLY the sort of thing you can’t say to THE GUARDIANS OF CHILDHOOD, Seraphina! How will they know you’re joking?? And that’s disgusting!”
Picking at her teeth with her hangnail, Sera retorted in a somewhat muffled voice, “Shut up, I’m a fucking delight.”
