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Britters
Level 72
The Eggstraordinaire
Joined: 8/25/2014
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Posted: 5/1/2018 at 1:38 AM
Post #51
The lingering heat on her cheeks was an unwanted reminder of her recent outburst, but Helga had put on her jovial smile and returned to her task of bread making with gusto, determined to leave the whole incident behind her. She gave Salazar an encouraging smile regarding the soup and busied herself with kneading the risen dough, shaping it and then stuffing the dough into a couple bread pans.
"Well," she said absently as she stepped over to the oven next to Salazar to throw the pans in, "We'll have to see how Rowena is feeling about it tomorrow." She ran her hands under some running water and then dried them on her apron, reaching up to tuck a lock of her wild and frizzy hair back into her kerchief.
"I'm not sure how she would feel about a permanent pet, though I'm sure Helena would be delighted. Though we'd need to train him up a bit.." Helga was using the casual conversation to mask her tumbling thoughts and wasn't aware she had started to ramble.
The thought of leaving the castle had caused a sort of twinge in her. Helga knew of course that that had been the plan. They were going to come seek Salazar's advice about what Rowena's dream might mean, investigate his manor a little bit, but there was something about the four of them being back together. It seemed to feel right to Helga in a way that she could sense she was not fully alone in. But, she supposed, they would probably need to leave tomorrow as scheduled, and she would have new memories to tuck away in the secret place in her mind...
-----
His success at stowing his dark memories away had left Godric feeling...lighter. He grinned at little Helena and tickled her ribs and her ears as though he'd been around kids all his life. Children had always made him smile, though he supposed that he found few opportunities to be around them in recent years, which was probably by sub-conscious choice. He had perhaps seen no reason to drudge up old memories unnecessarily.
"I couldn't agree more," he said, his a little lower and laced with emotion, as Rowena commented about her daughter and kissed the child's head, and he raised his eyes to look at her, "Perhaps thats what my middle name means, that I have the ability to recognize such perfection around me."
Almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Godric wished he hadn't said anything. If nothing else Rowena had proven during this evening that she was very sensitive, and probably with good reason. He cast his eyes down rather quickly and hurried Helena into the dining room to begin laying out silverware, hoping that he had managed to miss provoking her mother again.
Creativity
Level 72
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Joined: 3/4/2013
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Posts: 5,902
Posted: 5/1/2018 at 12:47 PM
Post #52
Something in Helga's reply didn't quite stir right with Salazar. He narrowed his eyes and risked a glance out at Ravenclaw, in the dining room. The glance lasted but a mere moment, however, and he quickly returned his attention to the soup, which, if he did say so himself, seemed to be coming along rather nicely. He did admit that most of the reason it was coming along nicely was because of Helga and her astounding skills, but he did still help. After all, what was management good for without a little hard labor? That's what his father always said to him when he would ask why they had servants.
Many people had many opinions about King Ulric Slytherin. There were those that worshipped him, and there were those that despised him. He created a kingdom of strict magic-users, and the Muggles didn't like that in the slightest. An involuntary shiver ran down Salazar's spine and he subconsciously reached a hand over to the back of his left shoulder, where a jagged splotch of a scar still remained.
Still. Many people had their words about Ulric, but Salazar had always liked him. Looked up to him. Respected him. He was a good father, who made strange decisions. Granted, when the castle became his, Salazar was finally able to see the half he hadn't been able to before, and all he could do was appreciate his father's oddness. It was better to appreciate something that had become yours when you experience it with that thought in the back of your mind telling you that it belonged to you. Yes, Salazar had been quite close with his father.
Helga's innocent rambling brought him back to the present day and he gave his head a small shake, frowning as he retracted his hand and continued stirring the soup. "What does it matter how she feels?" he muttered, glaring down into the pot. Then, he glanced over at his old childhood acquaintance and his eyes softened. "You shouldn't let her control you. You shouldn't let anyone control you, Helga." He realized it was the first time he had addressed her by her actual name, and he quickly turned his eyes back on the soup pot.
-
It was a good thing that Godric turned away and got to work, since Rowena could feel color lightly filling her wan cheeks. She looked aside and chose not to comment or further their discussion, although she knew that he was speaking of her daughter. Who wouldn't? And there was every reason to call little Helena the perfection that she was.
In some ways, Rowena thought with just a hint of horror, Helena was part of the reason that she was free from her awful marriage. Not that the little girl did anything except simply exist for her mother's wondrous joy. But still, Helena was the image of perfection in Rowena's eyes, however exhausting her childish immaturity could be at times. Despite the fact that the child was only four years old, Ro already had began trying to teach her how to read. It was going pretty well, actually, and Helena had learned almost all of her consonants and all of her vowels. Of course, as brilliant as her mother.
Rowena watched Godric with her daughter for a few moments before loosing a breath and getting back to work. She glared up at the ceiling, considering it, and then an idea struck her. With a triumphant half-grin, she summoned a broom from an open closet on the other side of the dining room. Wand in hand, she expertly levitated the broom, focusing intently on keeping it steady as she gathered the dust into one spot. She let the broom down and then levitated a feather duster, easily gathering the collected dust on the ceiling.
Britters
Level 72
The Eggstraordinaire
Joined: 8/25/2014
Threads: 167
Posts: 2,041
Posted: 5/2/2018 at 12:01 AM
Post #53
Helga gave the soup pot a stir, inhaling the aromas coming from within. It smelled quite delicious, and she was happy to note that Salazar seemed rather proud of his contribution. She spared a passing glance to the kneazle, Silver, who had curled up on the countertop and was snoozing contentedly. Well, at least he seemed comfortable now, she thought with a small smile.
"Well, she and I do live together," she said to Salazar, wiping her hands on her apron out of habit and pulling the oven open to check her loaves of bread, which were looking terrific, "So if Rowena says No to the critter than I can hardly argue with her. We make our decisions together." She said the last with a bit more force than she had meant to use. It was hard sometimes, talking about her friendship with Rowena, mostly because they were so very close.
Helga could think back to their days as children. She could remember Salazar being withdrawn, but not malicious, mostly just quiet. It was part of what drew Helga to him. Rowena and Godric were always off playing pranks or competing with one another, and so Helga would sometimes just sit as close to Salazar as she dared while they both read books. On the rare occasions that they had found themselves in conversation, she remembered him talking about his father and smiling. Oh, she had loved that smile. It was when his father was murdered, and Salazar stopped coming to tutoring that Helga had gotten her first taste of a world that was not always sunshine and blue skies.
"Besides," she said to Salazar with a smile, "I'm sure if I get Helena on my side we'll have no trouble convincing her mother. Now, why don't you float the soup pot into the dining room while I finish up the bread?"
-----
Godric was having a hard time focusing as he and Helena began setting out bowls and plates, but thankfully the child was keeping him mostly on task. She was a smart little thing, and she had no problem tell him when he was "doing it wrong". When she did this, he would smile amiably at her, give her a deep bow and proclaim how sorry he was to have made such an error. In short, he treated her like a little queen. However, even such antics weren't enough to keep his mind entirely in the present moment.
Had he really told Rowena she was perfect to her face? Had she noticed? It had seemed like she hadn't, and perhaps that was better for everyone. Godric felt shook that he had been compelled to make such a declaration. Sure, Rowena was a beautiful women, and she had enough brain for ten witches, but they had been kids together, childhood rivals, and she had clearly been wounded badly by someone since he had known her. No, there was nothing there and never would be.
"I still think you would have looked better flying around the dining hall like a pixie," he called over to Rowena while she was levitating the duster, "What do you think, Helena?"
Edited By Britters on 5/2/2018 at 12:08 AM.
Creativity
Level 72
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Joined: 3/4/2013
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Posted: 5/3/2018 at 6:54 PM
Post #54
In spite of her explanation, Salazar still could not bring himself to understand Hufflepuff's reasoning as to why Ravenclaw's voice mattered so much in the fate of the kneazle. He supposed spending over a decade in complete solitude had left him somewhat lacking in social situations, though, and if it were him, he would just take the kneazle and move on with his life, to hell with the dark-haired witch and her young broodling. But he knew that it wasn't him in the scenario, and that likely was not very socially acceptable, so he dared not even suggest it.
Salazar frowned as he heard the aforementioned child shouting playfully at Godric, and then Helga's comment. "Yes, I suppose the anklebiter does seem to hold some power over her birthgiver," he muttered in consideration, and then did hark her request, and began to heed it.
His wand was something he treasured deeply, he mused as he carefully levitated the soup pot, being careful not to tip it one way or another. When he had first been signed up for the tutoring, his father, a busy man who had to run an entire kingdom while being a single parent all the same, had spent whatever excess time he had leading up to Salazar's first lesson carving and whittling for him an intricate, serpent-based magick wand.
'Careful with that, now, son,' he could almost hear his father say mirthfully when he had first held it. 'That's got the core of a crushed basilisk's fang. So you know, forever, that no harm could come to you with the serpent's watchful protection over you.'
-
At Godric's incessant proposition - what an imbecilic idea, she might add - making its reappearance, Rowena made a face and shook her head at him, even when Helena cheered and chanted that she wanted to fly like a pixie. "Godric," Rowena sighed disapprovingly. "I vow to you that my feet will never leave the floor by anyone's accord besides my own, or so help me, I will turn the perpetrator who so dared to defy my gravitational wishes into a toad and then release him or her into the wild to hop and wish that some great magick user were to come along and end their slimy horned suffering. Now, I have had it up the chimney with that awful notion."
Okay. It was perhaps a bit more than she had intended, but she rested her case. With a frown, she leaned her aching back against the wall and slowly braided her hair again - why had she left it down for this long? She was once again reminded, by their conversation and her rebuttal, of the idea she had been experimenting with, toying with.
Of course, she had made very little progress and had reaped very little rewards, but once or twice she had managed the growth of a feather on her arm, which would quickly detach and fall to the floor as her magic became exhausted. She had told no one of her goal, not even Helga, though she did not like to lie to her closest friend. It was a lie of omission, she'd tell herself, albeit she couldn't completely silence the voice that whispered it was a lie nonetheless.
Ah, well. It wasn't like she didn't lie to Helga about other things by omission.
"It's getting late," Rowena observed as she glanced out the window of the dining room and found the sun to be almost completely down. "It has been a long day. I figure I shall retire after supper," she mused, but then looked towards Salazar, carefully hovering the soup pot in. "Ah, but here it is," she grinned.
Edited By Creativity on 5/4/2018 at 6:36 AM.
Britters
Level 72
The Eggstraordinaire
Joined: 8/25/2014
Threads: 167
Posts: 2,041
Posted: 5/4/2018 at 6:44 PM
Post #55
If there was one person Godric couldn't lie to, it was himself. He had to admit that he was finding Helena a uniformly charming little girl. She seemed to have most of her mother's best qualities, and a sense of humor that he assumed came from exposure to Helga. In short, the toddler was receiving a very well-rounded upbringing, despite the lack of a father figure, and it showed.
"Aptly put, love," he said seriously, nodding firmly at her lengthy statement, but unable to keep from breaking into a grin and laughing, "I wonder if perhaps I could convince Salazar to levitate you against your will. He'd make a very handsome toad."
It was of course at this time that Salazar appeared with the soup pot. Instead of looking embarrassed, however, Godric's grin brightened further and he picked Helena up and "zoomed" her in his arms around to grab four bowls and set them down on the table next to the small plates and silverware they had laid out earlier. When that was finished he set Helena down in a chair and promptly took the seat next to her just in time for Helga to arrive with the bread
"I'm starving," he announced, sniffing appreciatively at the soup pot, "Helga I do believe you've outdone yourself. I scarcely believe something smelling that delicious have come out of that dungeon-like kitchen."
-----
Helga watched Salazar leave the kitchen, the pot of soup hovering expertly in front of him, with a bright smile on her face. As he got further away, however, the smile faded until she was left standing there looking distant and saddened. She knew she was being silly, but being in the kitchen with him tonight had been one of the most pleasant experiences she'd had in a long time, outside of her daily enjoyments with Rowena and Helena. It had felt so natural and easy, working alongside of the wizard, but of course she needed to just clear her head of such nonsense.
"Oh, Silver," she said softly to the sleeping kneazle, reaching out and stroking the creature's soft and furry head as she pulled the bread out and began slicing it with her wand, "How am I to go home again after all of this?" She whispered the confession to the feline, the only confidant she could trust with the admission.
Only a moment later, Helga gave her head a hard shake. Stop being a empty-headed twit, she scolder herself. She would go home because that is where she belonged, and while she might spend the rest of her life cherishing the memories of this evening, it had never been meant to be that she belonged here at his side. If it had been it all would have happened long before R...well, long before she had already been tainted. Now it was just a girlhood dream, nothing more.
Her grin back on her face, she brought the break in a basket out into the dining room where the others were now gathered. She paused in the doorway, her smile faltering just slightly as she saw Godric with Helena and Rowena. She felt a pang deep inside, where she kept her own secrets. At one time it had been her deepest wish to be happily in love with a man, to have children with him, to live a comfortable life. But of course, that was not to be either...
"Here is the bread!" she called out, grinning widely as she set the basket down next to the soup, "Now who is hungry?"
Creativity
Level 72
Cutely Creative
Joined: 3/4/2013
Threads: 255
Posts: 5,902
Posted: 7/2/2018 at 10:51 AM
Post #56
No sooner had Salazar levitated the soup pot into the dining room than had Godric made the inevitable crack of a joke, or whatever that dimwitted brute thought to be humorous. In spite of himself, Salazar couldn't stop a scowl at the insult onto his home. He carefully set the pot of soup on the dining table, right in the middle, and, not for the first time that evening, regretted ever agreeing to let the four fools in. Well, two. Hufflepuff and the little girl were fine, but if they came with Ravenclaw and Gryffindor as the package, he would even turn them away if given the chance.
He had a hard time of keeping his eyes from drawing back to that pot of soup, even as he took his seat in the master chair at the end of the table. Truth is, he had been living off the plainest greens from his garden house for years, and he hadn't smelled something so aromatically delectable since the castle used to be full of life, bustling about happy. A king who adored his subjects, poor paupers who were joyous simply to meet their beloved king, kitchen servants that snuck him goodies at night when his father would say 'dinner and done', and then him, the sulky prince who turned away almost everyone.
It was true that the castle had changed quite a bit. It was almost darker now, as if the day he had turned the entire kingdom away, evacuating such a lively village and castle, he had sucked the very life from the stone walls of the entire structure.
His eyes were downcast with avoidance as he used his wand to lift the soup spoon from a distance and beckon it towards him, gently pouring the contents into his bowl before returning it.
-
Still mildly ruffled by Godric's insistence of such an idiotic - and slightly terrifying - idea, Rowena took the seat beside Helena that was opposite Godric, pursing her lips to refrain from snapping at the fool of a man. Instead she busied herself with summoning a napkin from the kitchen and smoothing it down over her daughter's lap, since the child was still wearing her newly sewn dress that the witch would not be happy to see ruined.
"Mm, excellent indeed, Helga," Rowena grinned at her friend as she stood and drew the pot closer before using the spoon to fill Helena's bowl as much as the little girl wanted, and then, in an act of kindness, pour a good amount into Godric's bowl. She then filled her own dish, replaced the spoon in the pot, and gently nudged it back to the center of the table.
Rowena inhaled the intoxicating smell and didn't hesitate before taking a small spoonful into her mouth and savoring it lightly before swallowing. She was rather dainty in her eating, though; the result of a childhood of being raised to be a Lady, and then actually becoming Lady Ravenclaw. Although she had despised the lessons from the tutors, some practices just rubbed off.
As she sat at the table with her childhood acquaintances, however, she couldn't help but reminisce some. After all, they hadn't known each other in so many years (aside from her and Helga), and for a simple dream to bring them all together... Though it was only pure chance to begin with that they had all trained together to begin with, but who could have predicted this scenario in their futures?
With a sigh, Rowena glanced at her daughter. "She's already been showing signs of magic," she told Godric proudly. "But I fear, in my current financial situation, I cannot hire her a proper tutor, so I will have to teach her myself."
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