10th July, 1893 — Dreamy Tea Party, Dempsey Estate

Porphyria liked folk stories and fairy tales a great deal, but she thought society tended to gloss over the best parts of them.

She had shown her face for Shalott’s sake, and might even do a reading or two later, if she felt like it, but she was less concerned about actually sitting down for tea and cake than meandering about the edges of the fairy queen-styled bower in their garden and muttering to herself – by which she meant, casting a few charms to make it feel properly fairytale.

Her project for the moment was conjuring up a row of twisting thornbushes, but thorns in general were so interesting to look at that she had forgotten to stop the spell – the thorns were well on their way to subsuming the garden path now.

And someone had had the good fortune of getting all caught up in them. “Watch where you step,” Porphyria warned gaily – not that that would help, when there were still brambles bursting out of nowhere beneath their feet. “You wouldn’t want to lose an eye.”

(It wasn’t a threat – it wasn’t a threat exactly – but a tragic blinding in the thornbush would be right on theme.)

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“Oohhh, oppa look at how pretty Mrs. Lestrange’s dress is!” Peony had crooned as soon as they stepped foot into the Dempsey Tea Party. Her dark eyes glittered with admiration as she tugged on his sleeve to draw his attention away from scanning the rest of the crowd. In a dutiful, brotherly sort of move, Cal followed her gaze with some hesitation before nodding approvingly.

“It’s quite becoming,” He offered, to which his sister nodded and said no more, knowing that was the extent of praise that would be coming from him on that subject. He secretly cursed Ira for winning their bet which had left Cal to bring the Rookwood twins to the party in Wales. Both girls were privy to their brother’s wager, and in fact, had taken much delight in placing their own bets, much to the chagrin of Halmeoni. It was only due to the fact that both ladies had impeccable records when it came to society’s standards that she allowed something so unsavory as betting to take place under the roof.

The majority of the afternoon passed as jovially as it could. Ivy and Peony who were used to their eldest brother’s somewhat unnatural ability to be unimpressed by anything were completely unfazed and even took turns making light fun of him during a particular section of the afternoon wherein someone deposited an entire basket-full of hydrangea flowers on top of his head.

Excusing himself to brush off the blue and pink petals (had someone placed a sticking charm on these things?) Cal retreated, muttering under his breath in Korean as he focused on ridding himself of the flowers. The honey-vanilla like smell still lingered, but he’d gotten most of them off of him (and left a trail of them behind him) when a voice rang out just before something snagged at the hem of his trousers and he looked down. The thorny vines that were about to blanket the entire path had seized hold of his shoe, then ankle, and appeared to be reluctant to let go.

He looked towards the voice. “Have we already skipped to the end of the fairy tale where I’m to be tethered to to earth, never to return to the heavens?” He countered, taking in the dark appearance of the young woman (presumably the caster) standing to the side. Pretty, though she looked thoroughly English and therefore, he figured, unlikely privy to his reference of The Fairy and the Woodcutter.

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Porphyria paused where she was standing, but she had paused with her wand in hand and the spell still in progress, the thornbushes growing in a clawing, creeping way up and over and around everything they encountered in their path, like a slow-rising flood.

They had this man by the ankle. Phyri, pretending she hadn’t noticed this, made no move to free him. Instead, he had taken her by surprise with his comment – no amount of parsing it could make her understand the reference.

“I was thinking of Rapunzel,” she admitted, and cocked her head at him, eyes narrowing. “But I don’t know that one. Tell it to me.”

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a sublime set by Lady! <3

Rapunzel. A Grimm Fairy tale then. A prince in love, blinded by a thorn bush doomed to wander for eternity until he finally finds her by her voice. His eyesight is eventually restored, but that hardly comforted Caltheus when he was currently avoiding being eviscerated by enchanted foliage. “A bit forward of you, if I’m to be the prince and you Rapunzel in this scenario, isn’t it?” He ventured, giving his leg an experimental shake. “Unless you were to be the sorceress.” She had cast the spell to set the brambles on him, after all. The fabric had torn already; but at least it wasn’t flower petals.

Though it wouldn’t take much to repair his trousers, Cal wasn’t inclined to relent quite so easily. Seonnyeowa namukkun; while an extremely common fairy tale in Korea, it was still a story that had been woven throughout his childhood. He was slightly amused by her demand, and vaguely wondered if he was to be held hostage until he gave in. “Besides, we’ve hardly been introduced.” He shot back. “Tell me your name. Or are you to also take after Rumpelstiltskin and demand I guess it?” In which case, he might need to send someone to relay the odd request to his sisters and help them find a way home.

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   Porphyria Dempsey

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Porphyria snorted at that. “You think I wanted to be Rapunzel?” That would have been forward; but this man was truly a fool if he thought that likely. If anyone was the Rapunzel of the hour, it was of course Shalott. Maidens trapped in a tower were all one and the same.

Phyri smiled inwardly at her own cleverness, for having made the brambles at the tea party today of all days: she did enjoy a little good imagery.

The smile faded at his talk of introductions. That was the mark of someone with no imagination, clearly – but she liked him a little better for having dropped the Rumplestiltskin suggestion right into her lap. She twirled her wand idly. “Yes, let’s do that,” she decided. It really oughtn’t be too hard a task for him: she was Irish, they were in Ireland; the Dempseys were all named after poems. Hopefully his knowledge of poems was as extensive as his collection of fairytales. She grinned as if she were giving him a gift by this. “It’s my house, so you don’t even have to be clever about it.”

He had better not mistake her for Shalott, though.

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a sublime set by Lady! <3

“Seeing as you were the one to first mention that banal fairy tale, yes.” He pointed out with another shake of his leg. Clearly he was quite incorrect seeing as she seemed slighted at the mere suggestion. Inside his shoes he flexed his toes to make sure he still had feeling in them. They were starting to tingle slightly. “Nothing says being forward quite like ensnaring a man in brambles and demanding he tell you fairy tales.” She might have been one of his sisters at this point.

He heaved a sigh, already regretting having suggested this game in the first place. She had certainly granted him a boon by revealing that she was part of the hosting family, but that still left four people to guess from. She was certainly old enough not to be the youngest who he knew was closer in age to his sisters than the eldest. That still left three guesses; thank Merlin he’d looked up the family beforehand so at least he knew the names. Ivy and Peony were in attendence which meant he did enough research to know the hosts and their reputations. They seemed an odd family, and most of their daughters were un-married, but there were far greater sins in the world than being a spinster. It clearly didn’t seem to bother this one very much.

“I take it you’re not Endymion then,” Cal said flatly, knowing full well the second eldest was only a year below him in Ravenclaw at Hogwarts.

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“You keep calling me forward,” Porphyria said, with a disdainful quirk of her mouth suggesting she did not agree. “This would have been forward,” she remarked, and flicked her wand again so that the brambles continued twisting up his limbs in double-time, now twisting about his sleeve cuffs as well as his ankles. Not enough to hurt him, necessarily – his clothes ought to protect him from the worst of the thorns – but enough for slight discomfort. (And he would not be able to reach his wand to get himself out of this now any other way. Porphyria felt like he had as good as asked for this.)

He had guessed (she used the word guessed loosely; he had been sarcastic about it, had known she wasn’t, not Endymion had entertained her anyway) incorrectly. “I’m not,” she agreed merrily.

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a sublime set by Lady! <3

“Oh, do forgive me,” Cal snorted. “Your protest of the use of the word suggested to me that perhaps an explanation was in order.” They’d repeated the word enough between them to thoroughly assure that both had a firm grasp on its meaning and Cal wasn’t entirely fond of talking himself in circles. He was fond of winning though.

His deadpan expression broke as the vines twisted up his arm, close to his scars. His jaw clenched. The full moon had passed only a week or so ago which had left his old wounds barking for attention. The vines weren’t helping the steady discomfort that usually followed the full moon. It didn’t exactly help his mood either.

“Do you like to self-fulfil prophecies often, then?” Cal had to let out a soft grunt as one of the vines found its way snaking across his chest and over his scar. Really he was just buying himself some time.

“Fine, Lycoris, Christabel or Porphyria then...” Their mother had a fondness for themed names, then. It was a nice touch, and certainly suited the family. Christabel had been married and then rather promptly widowed, he had read as much in the papers. If the woman in front of him was in mourning, she had an odd way of showing it.

Lycoris or Porphyria. Red flower with red filaments protruding from the center like a deadly spider, or a poem penned by one of his mother’s favorite poets. Well, it was decided. “Lyrocis then, if only because it seems you favor plants with spikes.” Skilled as he was in the cultivation of plants, herbs and flowers, he wondered how this odd woman felt about being named after a flower that also had the moniker of ‘corpse flower’.

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As his jaw clenched, her smile broadened – now she might even go so far as to say she was enjoying herself. Better than she’d expected of Shalott’s little garden party. And she only shrugged at his talk of self-fulfilling prophecies; she didn’t fear fate. (Or much, to be fair.) “I don’t mind if I do.” He was the one trapped here, at any rate.

And he knew the Dempsey daughters’ names, that was something to his credit; Phyri schooled her face into something resembling neutrality, so as not to give it away. A corner of her mouth did twitch at Lycoris, and at his reasoning (– that was clever, she would admit –) but she paused for a moment, deciding how to proceed.

Expectations aside, Porphyria had no innate sense of compulsion to play fair. She was enjoying toying with him (torturing him, in the mildest sense?) too much for that.

“Oh, you’ve got me,” she said, relenting at Lycoris with an innocent dip of her head, and pretending to look a little disappointed. (Lycoris may well kill her later, if he proved an eligible gentleman on her sister’s list.) “Well done.”

She didn’t, however, move to free him from the thorns.

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a sublime set by Lady! <3

Something flashed across her expression, small and quick enough that Cal wasn’t able to place it in time. And though she relented and he let out a breath of relief, there was an inkling of a feeling at the back of his mind that was, again, too quick for him to decipher. Frankly he was more relieved that the thorns didn’t dig too far into the scar on his chest; it already ached enough, and he wasn’t sure what introducing more injuries to an already magical injury would do. He wasn’t eager to find out either. “Dahengida,” he muttered under his breath, partially out of impatience and partially out of genuine relief, and he moved to relax…

Except she hadn’t released him. He flicked his gaze down to the vines currently imprisoning him and showing no sign of giving up, then back up to Miss Lycoris Dempsey. “Must I do something else in order to be freed?” He asked, shifting his stance slightly to see if - nope, that wasn’t a good idea. He clenched his jaw once more as he felt a thorn digging into his shoulder. “Genuflect, perhaps? If so, I think you’ll find a bit of an impediment - ow.”

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gorgeous set by mj <3

She was trying his patience, now: she was fighting the urge to laugh, although she held it in. “Rumpelstiltskin was your idea,” Porphyria reminded him, airily; “and I never promised to do anything about the thorns in return.”

One had to be quite precise, in fairytales and folklore situations like these. She was being facetious or childish or something by this, perhaps, but she liked his sarcasm, the muscle clenching in his jaw and the muttered comments in a foreign tongue. And he hadn’t told her the story he’d mentioned yet, either – so she hadn’t gotten what she wanted, either.

But she relented, just a fraction – the first wave of her wand slowed the thorns’ growth to a stop. At the second, they began to uncurl gradually about his wrists. It would take a few moments more to loosen at his ankles, but if he was very vexed she imagined he would take out his own wand and ruin her bramble handiwork entirely.

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a sublime set by Lady! <3

Rapunzel, Rumplestiltskin; Halmeoni was going to get a great laugh out of this particular tale, his siblings even more so when he would inevitably have to reappear with his suit in tatters. She’d cackle and remind him how specific he had to be in order to be freed, to which of course he would grumble that it’d been quite some time since he’d reviewed fairy tales, it was a miracle he had remembered the English ones at all.

Cal could feel a slight loosening of the vines around his wrists; they shifted ever so slightly, and he could feel the rest of the vines follow suit. He supposed he could have escaped the vines if he wanted to, but - not that he’d tell Miss Dempsey lest she take it to heart and trap him in an actual tower of leaves - he was coming to the realization that he enjoyed this; at least it was better than getting flowers dumped on his head all afternoon.

“Alright, Miss Lycoris Dempsey.” He relented with another sigh. “You’ve bested me there. And since it seems I’ll have to bargain with you, I propose to you this: I’ll tell you the fairy tale that I was referring to, and you’ll fully release me and allow me to return to the party unscathed any further.” He cocked a brow at her, waiting for her response.

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gorgeous set by mj <3

She didn’t know if it was the humour of hearing him call her Lycoris, or that he was still indulging this enough to offer up his foreign fairytale – but Phyri grinned at him now, less wolfishly and more genuinely. Tethered to the earth, he’d said, never to return to the heavens. She didn’t recognise it herself – and she had been a Ravenclaw once. She was keen to know.

She tilted her head at him. “I accept your terms,” she offered, gesturing him on with mock-grandiosity. “Tell me the story.”

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a sublime set by Lady! <3

Cal had caught her attention with his bargain, he knew. Her movements had gone from flippant and airy and slowed down until they had more weight to them. Cal could almost see the air around her slowing down, and suppressed a grin the moment he knew he had her.

At her gracious consent to begin, Cal nodded, took a breath…and then gave her a wolfish grin of his own before immediately reciting the beginning of the story he’d been told in his childhood. It was all as he remembered it: by heart. And spoken in his mother tongue, of course.

He finished the first few sentences before pausing, raising an eyebrow at her, extreme doubt that she'd be able to understand even the shortest word.

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   Porphyria Dempsey

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Too late, as he opened his mouth to utter those first few fateful syllables, Porphyria realised her mistake. Of course his foreign fairytale would be in a foreign tongue.

She was as impressed at his trickery as she was angry. “You absolute bastard,” Phyri swore, unashamed of her own rudeness. She could have expressed herself in gaeilge if she had wanted to insult him discreetly, but Phyri half-expected he would be the more pleased by her vexation.

She shook her head, in equal parts exasperation and pleasure. (She still hadn’t learned the tale she wanted to, but at least she had discovered a worthy opponent who’d stumbled into her web. It could have been someone so predictable.) “But I’m a woman of my word,” Phyri declared loftily, and with a flourish of her wand, the thorns retreated and shrivelled up to nothing.

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a sublime set by Lady! <3

There was nothing quite so sweet as knowing when he’d bested someone in a match of wits. Cal smirked shamelessly at her, his smugness only lasting so long until she called him a bastard. That he frowned at - scowled, really - even as he was released from his binds. Her indignation was palpable, and Cal should have been satisfied enough with that to take his leave, however instead he remained where he stood, massaging his wrists where the vines had been constricting the most. “I resent that, Miss Dempsey.” He protested, leaning against a nearby post. “After all, I gave you my word. And I never promised to tell you the tale in English in return.” He echoed her previous words, unable to keep the smirk from slipping back onto his features.

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gorgeous set by mj <3