"How did your Roses hold up, my dear!" Anya heard a call from the front of her little cottage. She came back around, adjusting her gardening bonnet over her puff of natural black curls as she came around the corner. Leaning against her fence was her elderly neighbor, a sweet woman with a weathered face who always wore a quilted shawl her granddaughter had made for her.
"Hmm, not so bad, Ms, Maeve. How about your hydrangea bush?" She asked, walking up to the garden gate.
"It's a hardy little plant, I think it'll come back, same as it does every summer. You know I'm surprised. The Mistress's spells don't tend to ripple like this. She's got quite good control," Ms. Maeve commented. "It's been snowing for so many weeks."
Ahh, that's why Ms. Maeve stopped by, she was looking for gossip. "Well, who can say," Anya said, giving a little shrug.
"Of course, but normally the inner circle gives us some sort of warning about this type of thing, so we're not scrambling for our snowshoes and what not," She said, tossing Anya a more pointed look than she probably meant to. "Your Ms. Rowena didn't happen to mention anything about strange weather coming our way, did she?" She asked.
"No, No not at all, but you know Rowena, she's not a chatty person," She said. Ms. Maeve was right though. Normally if there was going to be something this big, this obvious, they'd give the village a heads up. Give them a chance to go into town and collect whatever bits and bobs they needed before closing the gate. It was...a little haphazard and sloppy, and she hadn't seen Rowena or Edwin in several days. Sure that wasn't terribly strange. While Edwin would disappear from the village for weeks on end while he was off playing Duke, Rowena was known to run off for short stints as well. However, normally she'd at the very least let Anya know so there was no fretting over her return. There'd been no such head's up this time, and that was starting to worry Anya, but it was obvious Ms. Maeve was digging for something to chatter about and the last thing Anya wanted was to cause problems.
"Perhaps it was Mr. Edwin's idea. You know he can be rather sporadic sometimes," She said.
"Ahh yes, and the Mistress does heed his words so carefully. Maybe a bit too carefully," Ms. Maeve said with a small laugh. It wasn't as if gossiping about Edwin and the Mistress was that big of a deal. They were quite the spectacle, especially when he riled himself up over her. He could be a relatively pleasant and dignified man when he wasn't fawning like a love struck boy.
"Well, she does have to humor him occasionally. Did you hear about the present he gave her recently?"
"No? What was it?" Ms. Maeve asked, leaning in.
"He gifted her a whole manor in Seth, complete with a full staff and everything. And she's never been once," Anya said.
"No!" Ms. Maeve gasped.
"Well she lives in that big old castle atop the hill. What's a manor home compared to that. Would you ever want to leave?"
Anya chatted with her neighbor a little more. In truth this storm DIDN'T feel like the Mistress's doing, especially since it had such rippling effects. The Mistress was a much more skilled witch then that. Weather was near a mastery of hers. There is no way she'd lose control of a storm like this.
The young lady did her best to distract the elderly woman with gossip of the right hands love life long enough that she moved on from the snow. She didn't want her going to the knitting circle this afternoon and stirring up trouble with the older residents of the village. After a bit of chatting she found the opening to excuse herself and head back inside.
As she closed the door to the cottage behind her, she smiled brightly at who she saw sitting in their little living room. "Rowena!" She quickly hung up her bonnet and took off her wet boots, walking over to the girl who had pulled one of the plush chairs in front of the fire.
Rowena was born with many different faces over the years, they both had. Every lifetime came with a new one, but each time her eyes seemed to stay the same. Steely gray eyes, this time set against a face full of freckles, a long nose and tight lips beneath them. Her wheat blonde hair was pulled back tightly on her head, giving her a very stern look, especially for someone who was still a young woman. "When did you get back?" She asked, taking a blanket and draping it over her shoulders. "I'll make you some tea." Rowena's frame was thin and delicate these days. She was like a willow tree that sat calmly at the banks of a river, carefully watching over the birds and fish.
"I just got back, I saw you talking with Ms. Maeve, so I thought I'd sneak in the back," She said, taking the cup of tea from Anya, as she did she glanced down at her feet. Damp from where the snow had soaked through her boots. "Anya..." she let out an almost exasperated sigh as she set the tea cup on the end table, standing up. "Go lay your socks by the fire, you'll catch a cold like that and I'll be damned if I have to call in a favor from Edwin because you've made yourself sick," She said.
"Rowena you don't need to do that, you just got back!" Anya insisted, but it was futile. Rowena was already up the stairs and rummaging through the dresser in their bedroom. Anya pulled up the other chair so that she could sit beside Rowena. She slipped off her socks, laying them out by the fire to dry. Rowena was like this, so insistent on taking care of her, chastising her like a mother. Like any good Left Hand, Rowena spent her days worrying about every little thing that could ever go wrong, and all the people in the village who would be devistate if they did. Many people thought that Rowena was strict and maybe even over-bearing because of her attitude, but Anya knew it was because Rowena had such a big heart. Every Time someone got hurt (and in their long time on this earth, many people inevitably got hurt) it always weighed so heavily on Rowena.
After a few more moments, Rowena reappeared with a clean pair of wool socks and Anya's house slippers. She knelt down in front of Anya, delicately putting the socks on and tying the stays, slipping the house slippers onto her feet. "There," he said, patting her skirts as she stood up and settled back into the chair, retrieving her cup of tea. She glanced over at Anya, noticing the stare.
"I love you," Anya said softly, melting into her seat and leaning towards Rowena. There was a moment of pause on Rowena's face, before finally cracked, a small smile tugging at the end of her lips. Sometimes Anya had to remind Rowena that in their home, when they were together, she wasn't the Left hand. She wasn't a leader. She could take a moment to relax by the fire and sip her tea and not have to think about what to do if suddenly the sky started caving in.
Rowena gingerly reached over and took Anya's hand, caressing the top of it with her thumb. She didn't say anything, but she didn't need to. Anya knew.
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