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!]

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[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."