while you were looking the other way, while you had your eyes closed

[motherspider.livejournal.com]

*Esmerelda has been, by her own measure, remarkably patient with Dearborn throughout their thirty-something years of marriage. He is gone nine months out of the year, sometimes disappearing totally from her radar only to pop back into the manor itself spattered with blood or with some ridiculous and obscure wound and some beast's carcass to match. Of course, these bits of plunder do the best of their business; heaven knows someone has to kill unicorns, as dutiful virgins for plucking tail hairs are in awfully short supply and they are in steady an unrelenting demand for wand construction. And the blood goes for hundreds of galleons a pint, and goblins are unsurprisingly fond of the meat itself, and--well, he doesn't go gallivanting off to various foreign backwaters for no good reason.

But now is not the time. The various cut-rate wandmakers and shady potioneers can go emptyhanded for now; their son honestly thinks he's going to be wed to that thing--that girlshaped beast--that horrible succubus--she will suck him dry and that will be the very end, the final and terrible period at the bottom of the Rosier name. It's not something she takes lightly and it's something he shouldn't either, but all of her owls have gotten in response has been silence and, on the occasion of the third howler, an only slightly bloody chest full of goblin-made jewelry.

She has him now, though. She keeps a close eye on his itineraries and knows that he'll finally be passing through a real town with inns this morning if he hasn't slept in it the previous night. If he doesn't floo her from one of the inns, the last howler threatened, he may suddenly find himself removed from his genitals late some evening should he choose to return to the Estate.

When the fire in the hearth finally--finally--turns green, she rises from behind her desk, leaving her correspondence behind to stand, unamused and arms crossed, before it.*

It's about time.

Comments

[motherspider.livejournal.com]

Give me something I can use against Lucius, then. I've checked with my contacts at the Ministry and it looks like all records about her have been destroyed, but Lucius sent me her file--she's got a file, Dearborn--

*She heaves a sigh, but she's spent herself, and he's right, though she hates to admit it.*

Heavens. Anything to avoid more poetry. Those poems to Bellatrix were awful. What was it--something about comparing her to a fruit, and he kept using the refrain the thirst, the thirst, the thirst. Do you remember that one?

[fatherfarther.livejournal.com]

I don't know, the little shitstain's got all those bits and bobs under the drawing room floor, I'm sure you'll think of something.

Ugh, don't remind me. I'm surprised that side of the family still speaks to us. Adolescents.

Oh, I forgot. Saw this and thought of you.

*Unceremoniously, he produces a small and lumpy parcel wrapped thickly in rough muslin. Inside is an iron cameo from under the floorboards of the last goblin family he negotiated with. He thrusts it through the fire, in a brief moment when the connection is particularly strong.*

Have it curse-broken, Horntail, I haven't a clue what it's got on it.

[motherspider.livejournal.com]

*She takes the parcel and unwraps it, careful not to touch the thing. It's gorgeous, and exactly in her taste too, and she softens a fraction.*

Oh--It's lovely. Thank you.

*She rewraps it and sets it on the desk, arranging their resolution.*

I'm not going to undo what I've done so far, Dearborn, he's got to be put in line. You wouldn't believe what the goblins were telling me about the vault, he's been spending like mad on account at Twilfit's and a handful of little shops. Like he's planning to redecorate his flat in antiques. He's got to be shut out from the vault, at least. We both know he's got enough to get by on just fine.

[fatherfarther.livejournal.com]

*But he's shouting over his shoulder, again, in his clumsy Georgian, and when he finally looks back at her, there's an air of dismissal about him.*

Of course. Let him rough it until I get back, he won't starve.

Twilfit's. Just be glad he isn't buying her fruit plantations, I wouldn't put it past him. The thirst, honestly.

Two weeks?

[motherspider.livejournal.com]

*Her tone is bone-dry.*

I'm counting my blessings as we speak.

*She waves a hand like a flag of surrender, but she is smiling.*

All right, all right, two weeks. But I want you to talk to him when you're back. There's got to be a better solution than just allowing this to happen.

[fatherfarther.livejournal.com]

Kick in the pants ought to do it.

*Dearborn is not speaking metaphorically.

He blows his wife a kiss through the flames, says something that's inaudible under their static roaring: I love you, possibly, or don't worry, or don't be stupid, and then he's gone.*