Blackwood Grove, Fandom, Wednesday Morning

[witchoftheflesh]

It had taken awhile to get everything ready, especially with the break in the middle to go to Quebec, but Adrian and Boston had been working like mad to finish getting the stones ready. He wanted to make sure everything was done by the time the ground froze - which, sure, might not be as much or as soon as he was used to in Massachusetts, but neither witch nor familiar were keen on taking chances and the rocks still had to settle into their new locations. It had been several days of intense labor, hoisting rocks and digging ditches, moving in patterns that left beautiful markings on the ground wherever they went. Or, at least, he thought they were beautiful and that was what mattered. Some of the stones had been put flat into the earth, creating large stone spirals like the one in front of his house. Others were standing stones, dotted around his grove. There were a few more rocks to place, these ones nearly Adrian's own height, and a large hunk of natural quartz he'd found, but these were the last, getting placed not far from his garden.

"Proper circle or elliptical?" he asked Boston, using the bottom hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat and grime from his face before peeling it off entirely. There was a definite chill in the air, but he'd be working too hard to notice it soon enough.

Boston hopped down from the tree he'd been perched on, and wandered around the planned location, then began drawing a spiral pattern in the dirt with a claw. "Circle," he declared. "Make the radius bigger than the last one, though. Between the garden, greenhouse, and your heart tree, this will end up handling a lot of magic and the less we need to diffuse through the spiral--"

"--The better off we'll be in the long run," Adrian finished. "At least we got good rocks. I was worried we'd be working with shale."

"So you've said," Boston noted. "You've got the markers, right?" Adrian held up a fistful of long, wooden stakes. "Excellent. Let's mark out the proper places and then you can start digging."

"And then hauling. And then more digging," Adrian said, though he sounded happy about it, rather than complaining. "Let's get this done then, huh? After lunch, there's vegetables to harvest in the garden and the tomatoes should be done simmering by the time I'm done with that, and that'll leave us the evening to bottle more potions..."

"Less talking about things on your to-do list, more actually doing them," Boston said. "Get to work."

[Open! Conversation about Natasha NFB, please!]

Comments

[joan_of_bark]

"You really weren't kidding about the rocks."

Pam had known where Adrian's grove was for some time. It was hard not to notice: the beating heart in the soil, the whispers of the tree among themselves.

Still, she'd let him be for a handful of days.

Until, finally, curiosity got the better of her. And now there she was, lamia freshly removed from her skin for the time being so she wouldn't risk bringing it into contact with the trees of this grove.

[witchoftheflesh]

He would appreciate that consideration as soon as he realized it!

"Huh?" Adrian glanced up from his shoveling and grinned at Pam. "Hi! And nah, I'd never joke about something as important as rocks," he teased. "But hey, welcome! You mind if I keep working while we talk? Or is there something that needs my full attention...?"

[joan_of_bark]

"Sure, there's a terrible commercial emergency," Pam said dryly, her gaze running across the area. Taking in the grove. "Of course it's fine, Adrian. I'm even happy to help, if you'd like."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Hey, maybe you were coming to tell me that you were declaring the shop a coffee-free zone and you came to me to break it gently," he laughed. "And no, please, hang on, let me get you a seat and something to drink. Your first time here, you're a guest!"

"And you don't have a second shovel," Boston added. Very helpfully.

Adrian sighed. "And I don't have a second shovel," he admitted.

[joan_of_bark]

There was a certain level of amusement involved in that, "I have hands," but Pam was in a good mood, and it came with nothing heavier than an arch of her brow.

She strode a little further into the grove as she spoke. "But I'll survive sitting."

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian flushed slightly since he had done his fair share of digging by hand - including the excavation down to his heart tree's roots. So he could have easily offered Pam the shovel, but he'd been thrown a bit by the offer.

He didn't entertain much.

But Pam was rolling with it, which he appreciated. "Chair or ground?" he asked, reaching for his discarded shirt to tug back on. "And you want some water, or a fruit beer, or...?"

[joan_of_bark]

"Ground and water is fine."

Adrian seemed a touch off balance. A funny piece of insight, Pam reflected, as she looked for a good place to sit.

[witchoftheflesh]

He wasn't used to hosting!

His home had been placed in a clearing in the near-center of his grove, which meant that there was a carpet of soft ground cover for her to sit on, as well as several of the outermost rocks of the spiral. His lush garden also had a layer of stones around it, though they were more to demarcate 'garden' versus 'not-garden.'

Adrian did flash her a smile before heading back into his house, though it was several minutes before he returned, clan hands holding a sturdy wooden tray with a pitcher of water and two glasses, a loaf of tangy sourdough bread, a small crock of herbed butter, and a plate full of chopped vegetables: cucumbers, bell peppers, carrots, and chunks of a sweet onion.

"Here you go," he said, setting the tray down next to wherever Pam had settled. "The butter is from a farmer's market near the Blackwood, it's delicious."

[joan_of_bark]

By then, Pam had made herself at home on one of the rocks. Her feet extended to touch the soil, even if said feet were currently wrapped in shoes - the contact was always a comfort.

"You didn't need to go all-out," she said, halfway between amused and, perhaps, a little touched. "I'm just passing by. I wanted to see what you've been working on."

[witchoftheflesh]

"This isn't all out," he assured her with a grin. "I'm not baking. Hells, I didn't even make sandwiches."

Then he gestured to the grove around them, encompassing the garden, his greenhouse, the clearing, everything. "I'm very pleased with how it's going," he said. "I'm scrambling a bit to make sure everything's done before the frost, but things are settling in nicely. I should at least get a few more holes dug, but if you want a tour, I'd be happy to show you around. And, of course, you're free to wander the grove itself. He smiled warmly. "It likes you. Wary, but it likes you."

[joan_of_bark]

"Well, I am full of fungal spores," Pam said wryly. "It's probably right to be wary."

(And other things; she could hear the trees speaking, and underneath all that, unconsciously, her being still reached out to the Green.)

She picked up a glass and filled it with water. She took a sip. "I would like a tour, though. If it doesn't interrupt your plans too much."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Happy to," he said, picking up his shovel again. "You'll love my greenhouse. Well. I love my greenhouse, but I'm biased."

He cleared another foot or so of space in the hole he was digging and asked, "So how was your week here? Not too boring with everyone gone?"

[joan_of_bark]

"I found ways to keep myself occupied," Pam said easily. (She'd already roped - intentionally or not - two people into this. She'd like to keep Adrian out of it for the time being.) "The island is beautiful when it's quiet."

[witchoftheflesh]

And when Adrian turned to literal ecoterrorism - that was, terrorizing people with the ecosystem - in the battle against the warlocks, everyone would know where he got it from.

"I would say you missed an equally beautiful trip, but I think you would have spent the entire trip seething." Nothing said 'capitalism on display' more than a tourist town, unless it was a wealthy tourist town. "I spent a lot of time handwavily hiking and exploring the green spaces. And there were a couple of sustainable restaurants I had to try. One of them had a garden on the roof...beautiful."

[joan_of_bark]

Pam sipped her water, letting the chattering of the forest wash past her. "That's the thing about cities," she said. "People always find little ways to make up for all the concrete and the glass."

[witchoftheflesh]

"I don't think people can really be whole without it," Adrian said. "At least in my world, it's a reminder that they can't sense about what they should have been given. But still, it fills a part of them."

A pause.

"Mind you, that's entirely conjecture and I've barely been out of the woods so..."

[joan_of_bark]

"I've spent most of my life in cities," Pam offered. She took a bite of bread to go along with her water. "Gotham, especially. It can be oppressive, but there's so much life in them at the same time."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Little rooftop gardens and green spaces?" he asked. "Or live in totality - humans, rats, pigeons, the never ending cycle of life and death?"

[joan_of_bark]

"The latter," Pam said. Another bite. Then she set the bread aside. "Sometimes it's easy to forget we're all part of the same ecosystem. That we're all little things that grow in symbiosis with our world."

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian smiled over his shoulder at her. "That's magic," he said. "At least, my magic. The cycles of life, the world. That's why forests are so powerful. So many cycles crossing over one another."

[joan_of_bark]

"Sometimes I think the city has its own cycles," Pam said. She set her glass aside, and rose to her feet. "We just don't think to look to find them."

[witchoftheflesh]

"It does," Adrian said, then amends, "it should." He couldn't speak with authority on the matter, of course. "All magic comes from the great cycles. Life, death, the seasons, the weather, the phases of the moon, the orbits of the earth and sun - they all turn and spiral through each other, and that movement creates magic. Why should a city be any different? If cities can thrive and if cities can die, I can't believe that don't have cycles."

[joan_of_bark]

"It saved my life," Pam said.

She strode towards him, hands in the pockets of her overalls. "Realizing that even within all that concrete, if you reach out-- find the life playing across the skin of a million human beings-- there is boundless renewal."

She thought about Gotham. About Queen Ivy. How she'd shared some of that story with a stranger, but not with Adrian, yet. Should she?

She wondered if he'd think less of her.

[witchoftheflesh]

Well, he hadn't thought less of Yelena when she admitted she'd been an assassin, so...Who knew?

"Not to mention the dandelion growing up through the cracks in the concrete, the mushrooms growing anywhere they can take hold, the poison ivy reclaiming abandoned areas. They're still there. Cockroaches, bedbugs, mildew, mold. As people, we think of them as filth, something to be destroyed, but it's thriving life."

[joan_of_bark]

Did Pam's lips twitch a little at that 'poison ivy'? Well. Maybe.

"Exactly," she said. And then: "How about that tour?"

Still toying with a thought. Was it cowardice? More like caution.

[witchoftheflesh]

"Right!" Adrian said. "Here, we'll start with the house." He led her over to the snug wooden cottage that he'd brought with him from Massachusetts.

The front door they stepped through was intricately carved, and decorated, though that level of decoration did not seem to extend into the house proper. Here, simplicity and ruled, letting the craftsmanship speak for itself. Most of the space was taken up by a single vaulted room that seemed to be a combination kitchen and workshop. Where they weren't pierced with tall antique-glass windows, the wooden walls were covered with built-in shelves containing every sort of witchy ingredient from rosemary to dried snakes. One entire corner was dedicated to a fieldstone fireplace with a massive cauldron hanging from an iron chain at its center. The kitchen area beside it had a wood-fired iron stove along with a deep enameled sink and a spice cabinet the size of a wardrobe. Well-used copper pots and pans hung from an iron rack above the wooden island, which had a second cauldron stowed beneath it as well as rows of glass bottles in all different shapes and sizes. A small bedroom lay off to one side of the workshop, and a door out the back led to a glassed-in greenhouse patio that was already full of plants. The ceiling was steeply pointed and braced with massive oak beams, one of which supported a ladder-accessed loft that appeared to be Adrian's office. There were several bookcases up there along with a large circular window to let in the light, a comfy-looking pile of cushions for reading, and, oddly, a laptop computer. Other than that, nothing in the house seemed to use electricity.

"This is my home," Adrian said, pulling his phone out of his pocket and hooking it up to a portable solar charging panel, which he shimmied up the ladder to place under the loft's sunny window. "The greenhouse out back already has full rainwater capture and filtration, which means I won't have to worry about digging a well. I use a combination of aquaponics and compost for waste removal, so that takes care of septic and trash. Food scraps go to the garden - I will have to buy some real solar panels for the roof eventually, because those I couldn't make myself, but this should do for now."

[joan_of_bark]

Pam's eyebrows had steadily risen as he showed her around.

"You've been busy," she commented, looking not so much at the phone as at the-- everything else. "And all that with just one shovel."

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian laughed. "No, no, I built it before I got here," he assured her. "I would have needed a shovel and at least a screwdriver to have gotten it done here."

[joan_of_bark]

"Magic?" Pam guessed, as her attention finally passed back to him.

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian shook his head. "Practice and hard work," he said. "We build everything we use. It's called witchcraft for a reason. Though I'll admit the only reason any of the metalwork in here is fit to be seen is because I traded my cousin Deena three quilts and a carved headboard. I never took to blacksmithing the way I did sewing or woodworking."

He could make things, they just often weren't up to his standards.

[joan_of_bark]

Pam let out a soft huff. She shook her head. "We'd be better off if humanity showed the same work ethic," she said, and then sighed, well aware she was getting her own particular maudlin all over his pretty home.

"It's lovely, Adrian. Thank you for showing it to me."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Thank you," he said, running his hand over a bookshelf, looking quietly pleased. "I'm very proud of it. It was not at all motivated by the dressing down my Aunt Lydia gave my sister Annaliese when her floor caved in."

[joan_of_bark]

Pam smiled. "Is that a story I should ask about?"

[witchoftheflesh]

"You might have noticed from, oh, everything about her, Aunt Lydia isn't one to suffer fools lightly. She had gone to my sister's house to berate her about being careless and taking easy shortcuts. I wasn't there, of course, certainly not in a tree, eavesdropping. Even at ten, I was far too mature for that. But as she was just getting to the crescendo of her argument, Aunt Lydia stomped her foot to make some point or another - and her foot went right through the boards. Because most of the floor was actually particle board. And Annaliese, rather than trying to help her, said something like, 'Okay, thanks for the chat Aunt Lydia, bye!' and ran out the door. I think she was hoping to get to Mother before Aunt Lydia heaved herself out of the hole and caught her."

[joan_of_bark]

She could picture it. (This nice, comfortable family life that Adrian had had-- despite it all.)

Pam let out a soft laugh.

"So you decided to be more particular about your building materials."

[witchoftheflesh]

"Ten was an impressionable age," Adrian said with a laugh. "I swore right then that I'd learn to do everything right so that Aunt Lydia would never had a reason to put her foot through my floor."

[joan_of_bark]

"That also sounds like a wise lesson," Pam said, a twinkle in her eye.

Her eyes scanned over the shelves, making quiet notes about just-- how many spices Adrian really stocked.

"I guess I don't have to lecture you about respecting the women around you."

[witchoftheflesh]

"It's amazing what you don't pick up when there are no men around," Adrian said. "I hadn't seen an adult man until the first time I was given permission to accompany the family out of the Blackwood."

[joan_of_bark]

"That must be nice," Pam said. Her mouth cracked a little further into a smile. "And a culture shock."

[witchoftheflesh]

"It just...was," Adrian said. ""It wasn't anything I knew to be curious about, even. So yes, it was something of a surprise to see a full-grown man at the time. Though we didn't really stay long. We had to go to the Anchor Market, where there were plenty of men, but also demons and Heavenly Citizens and I remember only bits and pieces of it. There was a lot of sensory input for a kid that day.

[joan_of_bark]

"It's strange," Pam said. She sounded almost wistful. "For all the threat hanging over your head that entire time, your childhood sounds... nice."

[the_best_sister]

It had been a while since Yelena had visited the grove. Partially because she watched man bury a beating heart in the ground which was one of the weirder experiences that she had experienced in her life.

And she's from the MCU. That says something.

Still as she approached the grove, she was not in her usual mode of snark and attitude. She carefully approached trying to get a sense of Adrian's mood.

"You've been busy," she said looking around at the house and grounds.

[witchoftheflesh]

It was a totally normal thing! Who among us hadn't buried our hearts in something? Adrian's was just slightly less metaphorical than most!

As for Adrian's emotional tenor, the surprise he showed upon noticing her seemed to have melted into cheer at her approach. "I have," he said proudly, gesturing at the garden full to bursting with vegetables easily double the size of what Yelena might expect, and then the stone spiral she was standing on. "Still behind where I should be, though."

"You're the one who wanted to take a week's vacation," Boston called from his tree. "Good morning, Yelena."

"I want to see more of the world," Adrian said simply.

[the_best_sister]

"Good morning, Boston," Yelena said, flashing the cat a smile. "Good to see you in better spirits."

Hey at least he wasn't crying in emotional pain at the moment.

And then she turned to Adrian and nodded in approval of his garden.

"Well for someone who is behind, I'd hate to see this place if you were on schedule. Pretty sure it would put the rest of gardeners and farmers to shame."

She paused a second before adding in a half-joking fashion: "Have you recovered from having the world's worst roommate, yet?"

[witchoftheflesh]

"I live with a cat, Yelena," Adrian snorted. "I'm used to someone taking up far more of the bed than should be physically possible and refusing to share."

"Thank you, Yelena," Boston said politely, ignoring Adrian's comment. Hmph.

"My shoulder and left kidney may never be the same, though."

Someone was feeling sassy today.

[the_best_sister]

That comment earned Adrian one of Yelena's smirks. "Well, I believe you only need kidney to survive," she noted, dryly. "And you seem to have done well here with your shoulder in the agony you claim to have."

No, he wasn't making that claim but he's not the only one who can sass. She made her way over to Boston to see if he might be in the mood for a ear scritch.

"I did come by to apologize. I know I was a shitty roommate and gave you more than your fair share of crap last week."

[witchoftheflesh]

"You apologized already," Adrian reminded, while Boston graciously allowed the scritching. "And I think I maybe figured out what was behind it all anyway."

[the_best_sister]

There was a slow sideye towards Adrian when he uttered that statement.

And then a couple of blinks.

"Oh? And what is that?" she asked, curiously.

[witchoftheflesh]

"You've been trapped on the island, right?" he said. "Can't even call home? And then you got to leave, but just to go there, right? Nothing else?" He went back to shoveling, though he'd turned to face her so they could keep talking. "It's rough. When you feel free, but you know you're not."

See, Yelena! Totally figured it out!

[the_best_sister]

Yelena eyed, Adrian trying to wrap her mind around the concept. "Right. I'm sure that's it," Yelena replied, briskly. "And obviously you bore the brunt of it being stuck in the room with me."

We'll just go with that. Yes. Made total sense.

"I would like to make it up to you," Yelena replied. "Obviously I cannot have you as a client and have any kind of ill will between us."

[witchoftheflesh]

Well, if it hadn't been that, he was at a loss for what it could have been!

"There's ill-will between us?" He asked, now confused for a different reason. "You're mad at me?"

"Adrian." From his perch in the tree, Boston sounded pained. "Let Yelena make it up to you."

Not that she was feeling guilty or anything! Purely business!

"But--oh! Oh, I got--uh, yeah. You're right. Good idea to make sure the air is clear between us."

There was a slight tapping on the window, like say a broom was hitting the end of its handle against the glass at this conversation.

[the_best_sister]

"I'm not mad," Yeleana replied shaking her head. "I just-"

She paused.

"I'm sorry, does the broom need to go on a walk or something?"

[witchoftheflesh]

"No," Boston and Adrian said at the same time. "Bran's just--"

"Dramatic," Adrian replied at the same time Boston said, "Exasperated."

[the_best_sister]

"Why is he being dramatic and/or exasperated?" Yelena asked. "Did you get a Roomba? Should I let him out?"

[witchoftheflesh]

Boston declined to explain his choice of words. He knew, Bran. He knew.

Adrian shrugged. "He's pretty high-strung," he said. "My Aunt Lydia made him, so he's incredibly powerful and that comes with...personality quirks, I guess. Or, well, a personality in general. It's hard to explain. But he's more than a simple tool, even if he's not a full-on familiar like Boston."

[the_best_sister]

"So I should just ignore him and hope he doesn't break through the window," Yelena said with a shrug. "Fine. Anyway, I was thinking dinner or a drink or something. Or taking you someplace you haven't been."

[witchoftheflesh]

"He won't," Adrian assured her. "He's not hitting it that hard. Just like...being dramatic. Over something."

Who knew? Maybe Adrian hadn't been paying enough attention to him.

"Well, Supper Club is for going to restaurants we haven't been," he pointed out. "But I've never been to the Devil's Nest. Or to any of the Baltimore restaurants."

He frowned. "Which doesn't mean anything if you're stuck on the island. But whatever, there are a bunch of restaurants we can go to before Supper Club gets to them. Devil's Nest or...do you know what restaurant you wanna try?"

[the_best_sister]

Seriously Bran! Chill out.

“We can do the Devil’s nest, definitely,” Yelena said nodding in approval of the plan. “Probably not tomorrow though as there’s that fancy Halloween party at Liliana and Ignis’s place. Are you going?”

[witchoftheflesh]

A slight hesitation before he shook his head. "Probably not," he said. "Besides, it's Samhain. I'll probably go home for the celebration. I'm not a true Witch of the Bones, but all Blackwoods are a braid of the three, sooo..." He trailed off.

[the_best_sister]

Yelena frowned. “Is that something that I should go with you as your appointed body guard?” She asked. “Because you said a lot of words that just made zero sense to me other than “No, Yelena I’d rather go be boring than go get drunk on free booze.”

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian laughed at that. "No, I'll be back with my family in the heart of the Blackwood," he said. "Oh! Right! You probably don't know! All Blackwood groves are connected. So I can walk through my grove and exit in the one in Massachusetts. That's how my mom and my aunts got here. Mine is still a baby, so I have to use more power to support it, but with careful--" He stopped. "Right. You don't care about the nitty-gritty details. Anyway, I'll be safe as houses."

He looked like he might have said something else, but subsided. "Do you know what you're going to dress up as?" he asked, in what was not at all a conversational redirect, honest.

[the_best_sister]

“Oh, I don’t know,” Yelena admitted. “I’ll probably find something silly to wear. I felt like I hit it off with Liliana and she seems like someone who knows how to throw a party. I’m sure I’ll find someone to hang with there.”

[witchoftheflesh]

"She is...a lot," Adrian said, thoughtfully. "Very powerful, but her magic feels pretty anathema to mine. Not entirely? But a lot. Still I like her, and I hear the inside of their home is much nicer than the exterior would let on."

[the_best_sister]

"Yeah, I don't understand any of the magic part and I haven't seen her house," she admitted. "What's so bad about it? Is it a ranch from the 70's?"

[witchoftheflesh]

"It's a creepy old Victorian mansion that they don't have to decorate the outside to make it look like a haunted house. A possibly condemned haunted house. But neither Liliana or Ignis strike me as the type who'd want to live in a house that is as destroyed as it looks."

He points off in a direction in his grove. "They're my neighbors."

[the_best_sister]

Yelena turned in the direction Adrian had been pointing, realizing which house he meant, and shrugged. “Oh. Okay. Well, I’ve been in shittier places. The food and booze will probably be better, though.”

[witchoftheflesh]

"Anybody who has a themed Halloween party is probably serving something better than chips and a bowlful of terrible candy," Adrian agreed. He sounded a little wistful, but channeled that into more digging.

[the_best_sister]

Catching on to the wistfulness coming from Adrian's general direction, Yelena tilted her head at Adrian. "Are you sure you don't want to come and hang out with me at a fun party instead of your Aunties who sleep in holes in the ground? I bet there will be people in witches costumes that you can make fun of."

And then there was that banging again. "Jesus, Bran. Control yourself."

[witchoftheflesh]

"What is up with him?" Adrian asked, looking at the window. "Bran! Cut it out!"

Oh look! He'd completely forgotten Yelena's question, la la la.

[the_best_sister]

"Maybe he's defective and whatever magic they use to keep him from running into things isn't working," Yelena suggested. "I had a Roomba that did that."

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian and Boston both looked at her, somewhere between incredulous and insulted, and Bran stopped banging against the window and sped to through the door instead, flying towards Adrian, who unconsciously outstretched hand. He winced as the handle of the broom smacked into his palm and he could feel Bran's angry buzzing.

"Bran was made by the Old Wife of the Bones," Boston said, affronted. "Lydia would never make a defective broom and double never give it to Adrian. I let the crack about sleeping in holes slide, but this is entirely too far! That's an insulting suggestion from the--"

"Relax Boston," Adrian said, looking down at his familiar. "I don't think she met Aunt Lydia or my mom. And even if she did, I don't think she'd understand. It's fine. Aunt Lydia wouldn't take offense." Beat. "Probably."

Boston, tail fluffy and hackles raised, deliberately turned away from Yelena, muttering something under his breath.

[the_best_sister]

Yelena scowled. “Look, I don’t know how this stuff works,” she muttered, sounding apologetic. “How was I supposed to know all this? I didn’t grow up around trees and magic. You know how many beating hearts I’ve seen buried in a forest before I got here? None. I’m—”

She took a breath. Yes. It was still hard for her to say out loud.

“—sorry.”

What was going on here? When did she become the bad guy? Sure, she was a bad guy, but not this time.

She frowned at the cat. “Hey, I sent you halibut. Doesn’t that get me a little slack here?”

[witchoftheflesh]

"Not when it comes to the Old Wives," he said, still facing away, but at least acknowledging her.

"Like I said," Adrian said firmly, "not your fault. Bran. You heard her. She apologized." The broom still bristled at her - literally - then pulled itself out of Adrian's hand to angrily sweep at the rocks.

Did you know that sweeping can be angry? Because it could be, Yelena. You were seeing it right now.

"The Old Wives," he said. "They're the three most powerful witches in the world. The leaders of the Blackwoods coven. They're extraordinarily powerful and more than that, incredibly skilled. It's like you just questioned the capabilities of...Okay, I have no idea who would be a good example here. But yeah. They're not just my aunts and my mom. They basically are the Blackwood."

[the_best_sister]

Yelena sighed, realizing she’d stepped in it.

“I had a sister. Natasha,” she began, sounding pointed but awkward. “She saved my life. She saved a lot of lives. She helped bring millions of people back to this world and sacrificed herself for it. If someone said something stupid about her, I’d probably shoot them. She was my other half. My... Old wives.”

Okay, that didn’t sound right, but she pushed on. “I thought they were just aunts. Normal, magic-using aunts. I didn’t realize I was insulting anyone. Can we be cool? I’ll get you more fish, Boston. And Bran, I’ll get you…”

Damn. What do you get for a broom as a gift?

“A copper… personalized dustpan.”

She cringed. Yeah, she was terrible at this.

[witchoftheflesh]

"We're good," Adrian assured her.

"I would like more fish," Boston said to the air.

"We're good," Adrian said again, sharply. His voice softened when he turned back to Yelena. "You didn't know. You couldn't possibly know. It's okay."

And he stepped forward his hand, reaching out for her. "I'm so sorry to hear about your sister," he added. "Truly I am."

[the_best_sister]

Yelena took his hand, caught off guard by the moment. She had no idea how to react to the situation and no snarky comeback ready to toss out.

Her expression softened as she looked back at Adrian, warmth seeping into her voice. “But, um, I appreciate the sentiment. It’s... nice of you.” She cleared her throat awkwardly, trying to regain her composure. “Not everyone can manage that.”

She gave his hand a little squeeze because... that's what people do right? And then she slowly pulled it away because now it just felt weird.

[witchoftheflesh]

Probably for the best he hadn't offered a hug. Yelena seemed very prickly about her personal space.

"I'm glad I can do better than 'people who can't even be nice in the face of a confession of a major loss,'" he teased, since he didn't think Yelena wanted more sympathy to undermine her composure-gathering. "You always have the nicest compliments."