|
  |
Most native New Yorkers know Jefferson Market as the site of a former prison or courthouse. Residents of the Village know it as the site of the most recent efforts to beautify the neighbourhood. City council fights over the fate of said courthouse, but the grounds receive tender loving care from those green thumbs inclined to apply for a plot and a place to restore the once glorious landscaping to its former luxurious states. The handsome brick building gracefully observes the many small garden beds rising around its feet, the grounds hemmed in by a tall black fence but open very much to the public. It's not common for many people to loiter after twilight, but for those who do, streetlights and the floodlit exterior are enough to see by.
Scarlett kneels in the middle of a rather riotous degree of growth, pulling weeds out from piles of potato vine that spill around her in creeping, lime green foliage. Roses are commonplace in her section of the garden, with one minimum for every plot, and hers are a most unusual variety that darkens to their cores from the faintest of silvers smudged at the petals. They're late into the season, overtaken by sprays of buddleia — butterfly bush — and a variety of English cottage flowers, notably delphiniums, pinks, and candytuft around the torrential camellia tumbles.
Pail and shovel are used relentlessly, a hoe set aside to scratch at the dark soil when necessary. A few other people are about similarly working or, more significantly, admiring the spoils of their labours.
*
Crystal had gone out to go shopping for clothes for her sister earlier in the day. Her shopping trip, though, was interrupted by an angry goddess. While she seems to have come out relatively unscathed, it has certainly put a damper on her plans for the day. And the odd link in the chain, it seems, is one mysterious, redheaded mutant.
Finding Scarlett wasn't entirely easy, but eventually she did, weaving her way through the garden plots with shopping bags still in hand. "Scarlett," she greets, settling promptly onto the ground. "I think perhaps we should talk."
*
Mysterious redheaded mutants abound. They become something of a trope, in fact, though the one gladly sinking her fingers into the soil to loosen up a rootball constricted against a bit of forgotten concrete doesn't fit with the whole bewitching, dangerous beauty bit. A streak of dirt runs against her cheekbone, she wears a batik sarong knotted around her waist all too casually, and rejoices when a leafy bough whacks her on the nose. It snaps into place after she digs at the concrete block and hauls it out, upsetting one of the delphiniums — a tall stalk, over six feet in length, spiked in searing indigo bells takes this time to bop her.
That sound is terribly rare in recent days. She wipes the back of her hand against her brow, the dirty stone held in her lap. Not her finest moment, one way or the other. "Crystal?" She gestures. "Please, sit. Is anything amiss?"
*
Crystal sets her bags to one side, smoothing out her skirts as she settles on the ground. "Well, I thought there wasn't," she smiles faintly. "But then I was visited by a very angry Asgardian woman who doesn't seem to care very much for me. She said that you had been studying with her, and had a very long list of the reasons I was interfering with her plans." She props her chin up in one hand, looking back to the other woman. "I was hoping you might be able to give me a more balanced interpretation of things."
*
"A woman of rapturous beauty and mercurial disposition bordering upon chaotic?" The adjectives lace together without hesitation as Scarlett drops the stone into her pail, a satisfying clang upon the metal sides resounding through the gardens. If anyone looks up, they're simply bound to see two pretty young woman enjoying an early summer evening together. Gloves cover her hands, well-loved by the looks of it, and she takes to smoothing the soil back into the hole made among the flowers. "If so, that is Lady Amora, oft called the Enchantress, an exile of the realm of Asgard. My acquaintance with her is fleeting, only the past season or two, though she decided to instruct me upon certain subjects. I had hoped to encounter you sooner." Her gaze softens, a wealth of unshed and unspoken emotion contained within the pale frame of her face. "A warning that she might be wroth with you through little fault of your own. Hers is a spurned heart and unrequited affection."
*
"Yes, that would be the one. And I did pick up on that, yes." Crystal circles a finger toward the dirt, helping to smooth it out with a delicate application of earth. "The irony of which is that I have no desire to steal her prince," she grimaces. "He is a good man, and kind. I enjoy his company. And if I am obliged to make a match for politics, then I could find no fault in him. But I love Erik," she confesses in a low tone. "Still. The prince has asked for my help, and if it could mean aid for Attilan, I cannot deny it."
*
Scarlett's expression holds a shimmering depth of compassion and something harder to distinguish, the quicksilver transition of her own emotions buried beneath a mountain of possibilities. "You have my regards and regrets, my lady," she says softly, not much higher than a murmur for public discussion. "Lady Amora's affections for her prince span generations of our lifetimes. Should he not reciprocate her feelings, you are scarce to blame. She does not act rationally upon her passions, and his affection for you hurts her. I understand your duties and obligations, somewhat, and can understand the difficult position this places you within. You do what is best for your people, not yourself, and receive no little anger directed at you, don't you?"
*
Crystal waves a hand at the last, shaking her head. "It isn't the anger that concerns me. The Enchantress is no fool, and she knows that targeting me directly would be transparent and undermine her cause. My concern is more practical than that. The prince asked for my assistance, because he believes that bringing me to Asgard will appease his father. The Enchantress thinks such a thing unlikely. As I have few other sources of information on the topic, I wanted to see what you thought."
*
"Accept my judgment be biased by a limited background with your respective dominions," Scarlett replies, holding up her gloved hands. She sits back into the grass, kneeling and resting upon her heels, otherwise comfortable as one can be navigating a thorny issue. "I dislike speaking for the Prince on matters of the All-Father, but what I do know is the All-Father looks poorly upon mortals. You, as I gather, enjoy an altogether different status and may positively impact their relationship. Right now Asgard is in upheaval; both its heirs were exiled to Earth, and you saw the troubles with Surtur's realm of Muspelheim."
*
"Even some small familiarity is more information." Crystal holds her hands out, listening. "Besides, I have somewhat more trust for your reading of matters. The plan as the prince and I conceived it is relatively simple. Which…" Trailing off, she smiles crookedly. "I imagine it part of why the Enchantress thinks it unlikely to succeed. I am most likely no suitable match," she agrees. "Royal I may be, and more than human, but still of a family in exile and not of Asgard. But I am hopeful that if the prince shows his father that he could be amenable to match with someone more suitable than his past attempts, then they may reconcile enough to grant both Thor and Loki some freedom."
*
Quiet for some time, the redhead continues to smooth out the soil until no scar remains where the hapless stone, a remnant of the previous incarnation of a marketplace, will distort future growth. She then reaches into the pail for a set of shears to take to the plants, snipping away dead stalks and withered blooms. Still, Scarlett can speak at the same time, "She proposed the Prince take her back to Asgard as his intended bride, allowing others to attend as part of her retinue. No doubt she would also declare she would bear his heir, if she thought it possible." Her nose wrinkles slightly in thought, a match to Crystal's crooked smile. "No doubt the family divisions pain them much, especially long-lived as they are. Is this to be a legitimate arrangement or something mutually beneficial for the time being, until future events settle matters? I do not believe that Lady Amora possesses easy means to overturn her banishment, and she might be angered by an open avenue passing."
Her own words taper off for a moment, and the bohemian snips another branch close to the stalk of a camellia, the waxen leaves a deep green so pure it's almost unnatural. "Had I to counsel anyone, I would tell them to do what lies in Asgard's best interests rather than standing by personal gain. If the prince is at risk of returning, can the risk be mitigated? This be a terribly tangled web, and the best way to unravel it is not clear."
One can't know the All-Father's wishes, after all.
*
"Thor intends to give her the credit for convincing him to come home," Crystal notes, reaching out to sink her fingers into the soil nearby. "It is his hope that she will be free of her banishment then, without lying to his father. And while I appreciate the elegance of her plan, for the short time that I've known the prince, it seems…ill-advised to follow a plan which relies upon his ability to deceive anyone."
The question of legitimacy, though, is one that gives her a greater pause. Indeed, as she thinks, small stones slowly work their way up through the dirt around her fingers, tumbling into a neat pile to one side. "It is my hope," she says quietly, "That either his family or mine will naysay the arrangement. We intend only to ask for the All-Father's permission to court."
*
Diplomacy is an artform of myriad delicacy. The young woman smiles faintly at the revelations afforded her. "Deception against the All-Father speaks of the surest heights of folly. Odin One-Eye is renown even in the stories passed down to us for his capacity for bending the truth and, moreover, seeing through the devisings of his enemies and allies alike. Did any, Thor or otherwise, try to bend him on a mistruth, I am fairly certain they would come to regret the enterprise if even a fraction of the old tales are true. They know their father better than I, though."
The soft murmur of amusement ripples over her throat. "I like you a great deal. Not only for your commitment to your family, but conceiving a good way around this trouble. Had I half your wit… Ah, well, we shift the best we can in the world. May your heart and spirit lead you true. Have a care around Lady Amora. She is passionate and far-thinking, but sometimes greatly inhibited by anger and boredom. She might harm you because she can."
*
"It seems a good way to me. But then, these people are still strangers to me in many ways." Crystal draws her fingers from the soil, brushing them off. "She said that you cared for Loki," she says gently, looking back up to the other woman. "It is another reason I wished for your opinion on the matter. If that is the case, then you have as much or more stake in this than anyone else."
*
Paths fork from a simple question. Denial, diversion, doubt, despair, a lark in one quantum reality, and in another, the redhead completely changes the subject. In this one, the young woman confronted by a simple and profound question can merely stare up into the night sky washed out by New York's lights. Few stars can penetrate the radiant pollution infiltrating the clouds, thieves that blur familiar patterns into distant memories. Scarlett can name most of the major patterns if she tried. Some comfort will be found in a terrestrial sense. "I am unsure she quite knows the feeling." A finger curls against her knee. "The uncertainty of reciprocation, yes. But it's like a greater part of me went with him to Asgard, and will stay there until fate allows us be reunited or not. I suppose, then, that's love."
*
"It sounds it to me." Crystal offers a hand in solidarity, quiet for a long moment. "I would like to see both brothers free to pursue their lives, reconciled with their father. I believe such is best achieved with honesty and compromise. And I hope that I am right. But it would be wise to prepare for failure, to have other paths available. The Enchantress believed you could help locate him."
*
The young woman's hand is met by the redhead's, though the glove is an essential counterpart. Scarlett utters a rather soft, almost rueful laugh. "I want them to be happy. Whatever constitutes happy for them is bound to be complicated. But Thor seems in every way a good man, and I would grant whatever small benefits I can offer him to be reconciled to his family and not barred his birthright. Likewise his brother, who can shout at me dawn 'til dusk for interrupting his activities, so long as he is freed to it. I have some strange sense of all this." She waves a hand. "Nothing arcane or elaborate, merely a grasp that old tendencies play out again and again in different forms. We may solve nothing, but to the very least I want those two laughing or cringing over a pint somewhere instead of cloven in two like this." Her shoulders tip back, and Scarlett pinches her brow. "There is the crux of it. I do not know how I may be use. The whole situation to me smacks of my own uselessness, save as an observer. Mayhap I can. I pray hard enough, perhaps the Norns will take pity on me to silence the stream of intentions laid out to the cosmos."
*
Crystal considers quietly for a long moment, offering what support she can. "Amora spoke of owing him a debt," she muses quietly. "Which is a serious thing. Honor, debts. These are things that are not to be taken lightly. Gods and royals are bound even more tightly by their word and their duties than men. So. Do you owe him a debt?" she asks, quirking a brow. It seems this is headed somewhere.
*
Scarlett's smile lingers as a pale moon in the night. "That she owes him a debt, or I owe him one?" The query isn't idle, for wherever this may be headed, she is bound to walk. "At the very least I owe him the debt of pupil to teacher, apprentice to master, as it were. Other promises might be ephemeral or misconstrued, but those are not and I have the paperwork to prove it." Benefits to being a student of Columbia include a copious amount of bureaucracy. Her fingers trace a line down her shirt and then fall back into her lap.
*
Crystal's smile flashes at the last. "Of course you do," she laughs. "Excellent. And I don't suppose that the paperwork says anything about specific obligations of student to teacher or teacher to student? Frequency, perhaps?" She hasn't entirely reached her point yet, but she's working toward it, feeling out the possibilities.
*
"Something like forty pages in the student calendar and the registrar has its own tome about this fat," Scarlett holds up two fingers a generous width apart, "on responsibilities for professors regarding their conduct. His syllabus outlines, too, what he expects of me as a student and participation and function. It has to go both ways. I can hardly be a student in an empty classroom and complete any of the assignments, attend lectures, and the like without his presence being there. Daily classes plus accessible office hours, both posted on his door, typed on the course syllabus, and widely understood." Yes, she's providing ammunition.
*
"Mmmm, obligations to a mortal establishment may not mean much to the All-Father," Crystal muses, considering. "But the obligations you hold to Loki as his student might carry more weight. Kings may sometimes forget the respect they owe to others, but it is ever in their best interest to remember the duties that are owed to them. It would be a gamble," she cautions. "If Loki is being held in a cell somewhere, you could end up there as well. But even so, if that were the case, then it would be an opportunity to locate him. To be prepared to help him escape if the more measured plans failed."
*
"They derive their power from the position of their subjects. I owe him a number of varied things, not the least of which lies in the tutelage of mundane subjects as much as arcane. He may be loathe to acknowledge that his erstwhile heir has given over to an obligation on Midgard, I grant." Witchfire eyes in an unearthly shade of green nigh to gleam. "So long as there is food in that cell, I can endure whatever imprisonment takes. Guile is less my art than his, but it's not as though we cannot muster some alternatives. I have thought of a few."
*
"Amora had said it was her plan to bring you along as her handmaiden," Crystal points out. "And that by her not returning as Thor's intended, then there would be no way to bring you. I think, perhaps, she sees what she choses to." Carefully, she stands up, brushing herself off before she takes her bags again. "We will solve this, Scarlett. And for so long as Thor wants my aid, then I will offer it."
*
"She may try to coerce by many ways. Let it be said I am patient, as one must be, and aware that Asgard may not be my place." She glances up to the sky again, as if the realms are aligned and the grand conjunction opens windows onto distant places, the golden city beyond her dreams. "Let me know where I may be of assistance. Even if that must be sitting here patient awaiting what will come. This time may be beyond my reach. As Thor said — I'm not his wife. Or something the All-Father is inclined to perceive, anyways. One wonders even if I were, what difference that would make. May your joys be plentiful, and guard your step. I hope you and your sister are well recovered."
*
"Things are going to be busy for a while, I think," Crystal says ruefully. "My life is going to be changing. Hopefully not too much. But change…is something we all go through. Be well, Scarlett. We will find the solution to all of this, one way or another."
*
"Indeed. Road rise to meet your feet." An Irish benediction from a decidedly not Irish girl stands in good stead anyways. Scarlett rises to her feet from the kneeling position, smoothing out her skirt and then stooping to pick up the bucket. Shears, stone, and various bits of debris from the pruning will be carted away, and any sign of her presence solely within the loveliness of the flowers.