Alfred rocked his hand back and forth for a moment, letting the fire flick from side to side as he tried to consider how to explain it. It really would have been better to show her than to try and describe them, but he was obviously missing the appropriate visual demonstration on his own chest for the combined symbol. Maybe he could have drawn one, from what he remembered of seeing them back at the tribe, but they were all so individual that just mimicking someone else’s symbol felt — wrong. Even if Zelda would never know, he didn’t like it. She’d need her own symbol, when he added her to his tattoos, but if he was going to do it in the same style as the ones he’d seen before — well, the symbols didn’t just come up out of nothing, they needed a bit of background work.

With a sudden idea, Alfred moved to climb off the bed, still holding the flame in one hand. “Do you have your wand handy?” he asked as he went to his desk. He was going to need both hands, for this, so unless she was going to learn how to light fires wandlessly in the next ten minutes they’d need it.

  

---

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

“Yeah,” Zelda said, sliding into the space he’d vacated to reach for her wand under her Ministry badge. “Should I -?” On a guess, and with the assumption that there was limited magic she’d need to be casting in his room so late at the night, she cast a silent Lumos, lighting his room in the false white light of the spell. Zelda slid to the end of the bed, where she sat cross-legged, watching him curiously.

---

  

---

AMAZING set by MJ

He smiled when she lit up the room without his having to ask, and extinguished the flame in his palm again. He’d already crossed to the desk and it took no time at all to locate the ink and quill nub. He crossed back to the bed and sat cross-legged, his knees touching hers, and nestled the small pot of ink against the curve of his ankle.

“Can I —?” he asked, reaching out to take her hand. He brought her hand towards him and turned it over, so that the underside of her arm was facing him. This wasn’t where they would actually go, if she were getting real tattoos, but it was the most readily accessible stretch of blank skin. He could have just drawn these on a spare bit of parchment, but… it seemed important that it was on skin, somehow, even though that wasn’t necessarily a part of the mythology as he was aware of it.

“This might tickle a bit, but try to hold still,” he said, wetting the quill nub in the ink. He dragged it over her skin, mostly at a very low angle so that the sharp bit of the quill wouldn’t scratch her, but varied the angle slightly as he drew. He made four horizontal bars stretching across her arm, each with a different design, then sat back to consider them.

“...Yeah,” he said approvingly, after a long moment. “So then your symbol might look like…” He leaned in again, wet the quill and drew a swooping mark over the inside of her wrist, then added bits of embellishment here and there taking inspiration from each of the four marks earlier. When he’d finished, he shifted until he had one knee up and could lean against it with his elbow, then popped the clean end of the quill into his mouth and eyed the mark on her arm.

“What do you think?” he asked.

  

---

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Zelda watched, trying to hold her arm still even as the nub of the quill tickled against her. How did people hold still when they were getting actual tattoos, which surely hurt? She watched as Alfred designed the lines on her arm, the ink tickling a little again as it dried onto her arm. This felt like a big deal, even if it was just ink, even if she would wash it away sometimes later - she was caught up in the ritual of it even if it wasn’t real.

When he was done, she changed the angle of her wand to better illuminate her wrist and the underside of her arm, so that she could better see the symbol he’d made for her. Even if she didn’t entirely get the significance of the tattoos to the tribe - which she was sure she didn’t - the symbol warmed her, and she grinned at him.

She brought her wrist close to the bare skin on his chest, so it tilted outwards and she could see the hypothetical symbol where, approximately, it would be. “I love it,” she said, “I love what it means.” I love you, and that despite everything, Alfred had decided this was forever.

---

The following 1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post:1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post
   J. Alfred Darrow

---

AMAZING set by MJ

He wasn’t entirely sure about it still — he liked the bands he’d chosen for her, and the symbol he’d constructed looked good, but there was an art to this and it was one he wasn’t actually trained in. He wasn’t sure if it was enough, to really encompass everything that was Zelda. When she angled it up against his chest, though, his heart started beating about three times as quickly. It fit, and it looked perfect — he couldn’t wait to add it to his story. To add her to his story.

Alfred smiled, then leaned in to kiss her again — a long and slow and tender kiss. When he pulled back he reached down to take her arm in his hands again, admiring his handiwork. He reached up to brush his thumb over one of the horizontal bands with a quick smile. “This one sort of outranks me,” he admitted, reaching his other hand up to brush against the corresponding mark in the center of his chest.

The following 1 user Likes J. Alfred Darrow's post:1 user Likes J. Alfred Darrow's post
   Zelda Darrow

---

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

With the arm he wasn’t holding, Zelda reached out to brush her index finger against the band Alfred indicated. Even though that wasn’t the focus at the moment, she really wasn’t used to being around him when he was even partially undressed, and there was a faint rush of heat on her cheeks as she touched him.

“What do you mean, outranks?” she asked, not entirely sure she was getting it - at least, not in this context.

---

  

---

AMAZING set by MJ

“Well, it’s not exactly that,” he admitted with a shrug. “Because they’re not so formal as that, where these tattoos come from. But it’s like — well,” he said, realizing he needed to back up and explain what the horizontal patterns actually were before he could explain what they meant. “This section in the middle are descriptors of who you are. And the patterns are pretty standard — they mean the same things. But everyone has a different combination of them, a different way that they build on each other. So this one I earned when —” he started, but stopped. He hadn’t ever told Zelda about that bit, and he wasn’t sure how she would react, so maybe now wasn’t the time.

“Well, it’s — it’s like a term for a fighter, or a warrior,” he explained. The mark he’d indicated had a horizontal line at the base, then a series of diagonal hatches across that made it look like a series of x’s; it was meant to symbolize crossed spears, which was the weapon of choice in the tribe’s conflicts with their neighbors. Reaching down, he brushed his fingers against the corresponding mark he’d given her with ink. It had the same base pattern as his, though it might not have been immediately evident, because in hers the x’s built up to a row of shaded triangles, with stylized points.

“Yours is — hm, what’s the word?” he wondered aloud. He didn’t often have to think about the English terms for the tattoo symbols he remembered from the tribe, and nothing very fitting was coming to mind. “It’s like… a strategist, sort of, but more active than that. It’s the person who can be in the middle of a fight and still see the way through it. It’s — say you were ambushed in the jungle, and you still won. That’s the sort of thing that would earn you this one,” he continued, wondering if this was making any sense to her at all. Of course, he hadn’t chosen it for her because of any literal battles, and he didn’t think she was particularly likely to get ambushed in the jungle any time soon. It still seemed fitting, though — everything from forging ahead with the courtship last year, which had been her idea, to the stunning spell with Jo this afternoon. She saw a way through things when all he could think to do was give up.

  

---

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

She should have realized that the lines themselves meant something, because Alfred had been so deliberate in constructing them. Her smile as he explained was slow and real, like he’d charmed it out of her. “You think I’m a strategist?” she said, audibly a little delighted - Alfred had always had a level of confidence in her that most people just didn’t, no matter how hyper-competent she tried to appear at work. But a strategist, that was something else - she wanted to be the sort of person who could see her way through things, the sort of person with plans that paid off, and she didn’t know if she’d made it there yet.

“What are your other descriptors?” Zelda said, brushing her thumb against them on his chest. How had the tribe seen Alfred, what had he meant to them; how different was it from what Zelda knew of him? She wanted to know what he was like, not just here but everywhere - not because she didn’t think she knew him (she did) but because people were different in different places, and obviously Alfred in the tribe had been different from Alfred returned.

---

The following 1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post:1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post
   J. Alfred Darrow

---

AMAZING set by MJ

“Yeah,” he said, almost shyly. She was obviously pleased with his description, but he couldn’t help but feel self-conscious about the track this conversation had taken. It was like he was explaining her to herself, but obviously anything he came up with wasn’t going to be as real and valid as what she already knew, was it? But maybe there was something a little bit charming in it, too, of hearing someone else explain the way they saw you — he wondered what she would have picked for him, had their positions been reversed, but before he could think of any way to ask such a question she’d redirected back to his tattoos.

“Oh — well, you have to read them all together,” he explained. “Because it’s not just one thing, it’s how they all work together. Like these ones,” he said, pointing to three similar bands at the top (the second, third, and forth, respectively). “Most people, if they got these, would have them a lot later. They’d be under these two, for sure, at least for men. So the order sort of tells — But — sorry, that’s not what you asked,” he said, realizing he was getting ahead of himself.

“So it’s — I don’t really know the best way to translate them all in English,” he said, as a sort of disclaimer. When he continued, he pointed out each band on the center of his chest, so that she could follow which was which. “So it’s… well, the first one’s hard to translate, but it’s like… inexperienced,” he said, with a slight flush of his cheeks. “Or… child-like, I guess. But then these three are for magic. Like student, helper, healer, but all for spellwork. With the wandless magic. Then hunter, fighter. This one is teacher. And the last one is —” here he grinned, finally having reached the part where he thought she might seem to think this made sense. “— explorer. Or — it’s not just about places, though. Maybe something more like… experimenter would be closer.”

  

---

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Zelda followed as best she could, noting the differences in the patterns and the meanings as he explained them. It reminded her distantly of her History of Magic classes, if only loosely - their curriculum rarely covered other cultures in depth, and Alfred was not a piece of history, because he was very much here with her in the present. It was more that she was learning about a visual language she didn’t speak, like studying the Picts again, and trying to decipher the meaning of patterns.

It was the explorer - or, experimenter - that let her get a better handle on his tattoos; the meaning of that particular band was also just so Alfred that the corners of her mouth twitched up as he explained.

She ran her thumb down the band he’d indicated. “So the meaning is more than the sum of its parts,” Zelda said, “And can’t really be pulled at from just one of them, right? It’s - all of it.” She was a person who liked to poke at the parts of things and figured out how they worked - so, this was different, but not in a bad way.

---

  

---

AMAZING set by MJ

“Yeah,” Alfred said, smiling as she brushed her fingers against his chest again. “Yeah, exactly. The first one is sort of just about you, because it’s — a lot of the times it’s a childhood nickname or something,” he explained. “But the rest are all about… how you fit into things. What you do for other people. So like, with these ones about magic. Most people get this middle one, helper, because there’s a lot of, uhm, collaborative magic,” he explained, with a shrug. It was decidedly un-English, but that was how most people in the tribe experienced magic; participating in dances and chants. Magic as a ritual, rather than as a spell. Actually trying to understand and build the spells — the student marker — wasn’t a given, and spoke to how much time he’d spent with the old woman who represented the magical authority of the tribe. And, of course, he could do plenty of things with wandless magic, like the fire, but the only one that had earned him a new band was healer.

“But having these in this order is… well, I spent a whole year basically just doing that,” he explained. “And that’s not usual. Mostly the people who actually study magic in the tribe are all women,” he admitted, with a slight flush. “But it’s like — that was my path in. And after I learned their magic, I learned how to hunt with them, and —” he brushed his hand over the fighter band but again did not say more about it. “And that’s when I got the tattoos. That’s when I really felt like I was part of it all. Like I’d earned it,” he explained. “And that’s when I started teaching them things. And exploring again,” he added, almost as an afterthought, with a slightly sentimental smile.

  

---

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Zelda's experience with collaborative magic was limited - the sort of dual casting that she and Delight had conducted at the tenement house, for example - and even though it wasn't the point, her brain caught on it. Group magic, and the women led it, and — she wanted very badly to see it for herself. She'd told Miss Delaney as much early in the year, but had focused on Brazil and Rio de Janeiro, which she'd heard more of — not the tribe Alfred stayed with and everything about them.

This was different than reading Alfred's book, which of course wasn't really Alfred's — and maybe this was a little less over-dramatic than what would have sold well, but it was also much more interesting.

She brushed her fingers over the fighter band, which Alfred hadn't elaborated on. "What was the —" she frowned, trying to figure out what she wanted to say "— sorry, that didn't make sense. What changed?"

---

  

---

AMAZING set by MJ

It was probably inevitable that she would have asked sooner or later, since it was such a central part of the story — and a central part of the tattoos visually, in fact. Still, he wasn't sure exactly what to say to answer. He wanted to tell her the truth, but he didn't want to shock her, and this was... shocking, certainly. Not the sort of thing he regularly talked about, and certainly not anything he would have wanted any of her family to know about him. It was the closest real event to any of the sensational things that his 'memoir' had hinted at or suggested — so in theory if she'd already read that, and liked him anyway, this shouldn't have been a deal breaker. Still, he wasn't sure how she would react. He brushed his thumb over the mark again, eyes going unfocused for a moment as he tried to think of how to phrase it.

"I'll tell you if you promise not to think any differently of me," he said, though realized immediately that he couldn't really ask that of her. He couldn't expect her to promise to feel any particular way, especially when she didn't know what he was going to say next. If this was going to change the way she felt about him, though, he supposed it would be better to talk about it now, rather than after they were married.

He took a breath in, steeling himself. "I killed someone," he admitted, watching her reaction carefully. "An enemy. To defend a friend. That's what happened."

  

---

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Zelda bit her lip as she waited — she hadn't expected this to be a loaded question, but it evidently was, even before Alfred actually explained. She pressed her fingertips against his chest at the answer, and looked into Alfred's eyes as she tried to wrap her head around this new information.

It was hard to reconcile Alfred-who-had-killed-someone - it wasn't murder if he'd been defending a friend - with the Alfred in front of her, the Alfred who played along with his niece's little games and poked fun at his brother and fidgeted when he was nervous. Zelda was not sure she had ever met anyone who had killed someone — (or at least she had not knowingly met them.) But it was different, killing someone in England versus killing someone when lost in the wilds of South America — she was sure that Alfred had not set out that day to kill someone.

"Of course I don't think differently of you," she said, after a beat. She'd left a mark on her lip where she'd been biting it. "You — well, you had to. And people do all sorts of things when they're desperate." In the scheme of things — killing someone in defense of a friend was perhaps less dire than what Zelda had tried to do to Jo in the hallway earlier.

---

  

---

AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred's hands gravitated down towards his ankles as he sat watching her. She was rationalizing it a bit, which was the understandable reaction, but one that he didn't want to let go uncorrected. If he was going to share this part of himself with her, which he hadn't shared with anyone since the tribe, he wanted her to actually see it for what it was.

"I didn't have to," he corrected gently. "I could've yelled to warn him, instead, or I could've run and no one would've blamed me. It happened fast, but... I chose that," he explained. He didn't want to give her the impression that it had been calculated, or anything, because obviously it hadn't been. He wasn't the sort of person who was going to weigh all of the options carefully and then decide to commit murder, but it also hadn't been an accident, and it would be disingenuous of him to hide behind a phrase like you had to, even if that phrase had come from her and not him.

"I could've gotten these tattoos earlier," he continued, glancing down at the storm mark on his shoulder. "If I'd wanted them, they would have given them to me months before. But I didn't feel like these symbols belonged to me until after that. I felt like I'd only be there in the village for a few weeks, or a few months, maybe a few years but I was still... you know, still English. But after that I realized if you — well, if you're willing to do that for someone, then that's it. That's your tribe."

  

---

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Zelda frowned faintly; she was trying to wrap her head around the fact that Alfred had killed someone, that he'd been carrying this around with him for the entire time she'd known him. Would she kill someone if she had to — or, if she didn't have to, if it happened quickly and she was trying to protect her friends, or her family. The answer came to her almost immediately: yes, of course she would. That she was unlikely to be in such a position was more a symptom of her circumstances than it was of anything else — she was probably not going to run into any situations that required killing in Britain.

"Did you ever regret it?" she asked; it felt like an odd question to ask, but it was the only one she could think to ask. "Not the tattoos, but —" Zelda shrugged, a gesture meant to encompass the fact of another man's death; she didn't know what word to use it, because it didn't sound like a murder, more like an accident.

---

  

---

AMAZING set by MJ