Absit Omen RPG
Role-Play Boards => Muggle London => London => Roh-Ballentyne Residence => Topic started by: Iona 'Bruce' Ballentyne on August 07, 2020, 06:33:59 AM
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About 6:30pm
When Iona Ballentyne stepped in through the front door of her London flat, she was surprised to see her wife already home. Both women were in the habit of working long hours. For a couple of weeks or so, they’d been going to and returning from work together in order to appease those that had decided the former werewolf hunter somehow needed protection, but they’d ceased bothering with that rubbish now.
“Part timer today?” Iona asked, pulling off her navy cloak and flinging it onto the stand by the door. She kicked off her boots and rested her cane against the breakfast bar. Without any pause to give her wife a kiss in greeting, the red head chose, instead, to gingerly limp over to the fridge and pull out a bottle of white wine. With a wave of her wand, a wine glass joined that on the breakfast bar and she opened it to pour a sizable glass.
“Don’t ask.” She muttered, frowning before taking a large gulp which was barely savoured before gliding down her throat. “Actually, do. Do ask. Because I’d love your opinion on this too.” Blue eyes scanned from Zora to the corridor which led to the bedrooms.
“Is she out?” she took another gulp.
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Zora was, as noted, home earlier than usual. Senior Auror had its perks from time to time and that included coming and going as she pleased. She rarely took advantage, unsurprisingly, but this was a rare case.
"Waiting for an owl, that new cauldron," she said without looking up from the couch. Couldn't have an owl hanging about with a giant pot in their mostly muggle neighborhood.
When she heard the icebox open and a bottle clinking the rim of a glass, Zora glanced over to see her wife serve herself quite a pour.
"Yeah, working late." Since her arrest for gillyweed and their discover their daughter had voluntarily (or so she claimed) got herself bitten by a vampire, they'd seen very little of the nineteen-year-old, clearly depressed hermit. Waverly had moved back to her old room on her own accord, and worked late and slept late. Attempts to communicate had been unsuccessful but at least she was home.
"What happened?"
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Waiting on a new cauldron to arrive, the exciting new purchase for the witches in their 40s. So, exciting that Zora would get off work early to sit in and wait for it. Maybe they’d take it for a spin, or rather, brew, this evening.
“What happened?” Iona repeated, taking another swig of wine before she poured yet more into her glass and replaced the bottle in the fridge. “What happened? My new boss is a people pleasing muttonhead, that’s what happened.” She slowly limped over towards the couch. “Spectre and Splinters, the fence straddling being head, have decided that maybe they should look into making consensual vampire feedings legal. They want to open up the bloody human buffet! Put our withes and wizards on a bloody platter for a good suck!” Bloody was certainly the word!
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Oh, it was going to be one of those wine evenings. Zora turned full on around in the couch and rested her elbows on the back. She rather liked her wife's rants. No one could turn a harangue like Iona Ballentyne. She gave the cushion a pat-pat, inviting her to sit down. But then Iona got to the crux of it. Legalizing voluntary vampire biting? She furrowed her brows.
"How are they going to manage regulate that? Madness. Not even possible. Vampires can hypnotize. Might as well be the Imperius Curse for all Beings would know," Zora said with a shake of her head. Maybe it should be a wine evening.
"What's prompting all this? Not as if there's a vampire lobby pushing paper, is there."
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Iona wasn’t ready to sit on the sofa just yet. Ranting was easier when stood and moving around. It had more effect, didn’t it?
“Merlin knows!” was her response to what could be prompting this proposal. Heck, it was also her response to how they would regulate it. Merlin only knew because Iona sure as hell didn’t understand why they would consider giving vampires permission to suck the human population dry.
“I don’t get it. And when I questioned it? Basically, I got told to pipe down and bugger off because I know bloody naff all. What business is it of mine? Sodding boys club over there want that to be Spectre’s first move as department head. Bloody idiots, I tell ya.” She continued quickly before taking a sip of wine. “You fancy dealing with that rubbish? How in Merlin’s name do you see if some anaemic poor sod asked for it or not?”
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Boys' club was right. Spectre's reputation was better that Carstairs, but most men Zora had ever known showed the teeth when they were challenged by a forthright witch like Iona.
"So we're investigating a vampire murder on in the MLE," Zora gestured to herself, "and all the while that lot in Creatures," she waved her hand towards the front door, "want to provide a legal defense for it?"
Zora scoffed. Then she had a thought.
"What if it's that liaison?" The so-called vampire liaison, Tristan Vaillancourt that Zora and Iona had met with.[1] He'd been so smooth and unharried, it was easy to see how he could be convincing.
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“Could be.” Iona agreed with wide eyes and a swig of wine. The word ‘liason’ was clearly misused when it came to Cepheus Gamp’s nightcrawling friend. “Maybe he’s pulled his voodoo vampire mind shit on them.” Iona didn’t know as much about vampires as she might profess, but she sure knew that she didn’t want them having a free feeding buffet at the expense of many vulnerable individuals.
“I’m beyond trying to understand it, Zo. It’s like whatever,” Iona’s rant was disturbed by a pecking at the closed window. She put the wine glass down on the coffee table and flicked her wand at it, making her way over. “It’s like whatever I do on the werewolf front isn’t going to be accepted because, let’s face it, we’re universally hated. But vampires?” The owl flew in through the window and dropped a large parcel along with a few letters all wrapped together with string. “Well, they’re the in thing, aren’t they?”
Untying the string, Iona raised her eyebrows. “Oh, you decided to go with the golden handles. Nice choice.” The letters were thrown to Zora to sift through.
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The owl's arrival was enough to roust Zora from the couch to fetch her own portion of wine, taking the envelopes along with her to the worktop. She defended her choice of cauldron handles along the way.
"Can't be seen brewing in some bucket..." she said as she padded in her stocking feet to the kitchen.
"Are they in?" Zora questioned. "How can vampires be in? Not as if they're navel piercings, are they? I'm not half as old as that liaison and somehow he's cooler than me. I don't believe it for a second. I wear sunglasses indoors."
It was a rather horrible thing to think about, that their very fashionable, very cool daughter Waverly had ended up at a vampire's bite because it was trendy. Zora felt direly out of touch, if that were the case.
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“Okay, Zo, I need to tell you something.” Iona glanced over the kitchen island at her wife. “Better to come from me than some heartless criminal at work.” She started to pull the cauldron out of the box and laid it on the countertop. It was good quality, but there was certainly a little sadness over departing with the one that had served them for so long. Some things just weren’t meant to be replaced because they were a little broken. At least Zora hadn’t replaced her wife when she’d broke.
A few awkward steps around the island brought Iona close to Zora where she took her hands, pulling her close, and looked into her dark eyes.
“Sunglasses indoors hasn’t been cool since the nineties, babe.” It was about time she shared that opinion. It wasn’t to say Iona didn’t like her wife’s funny quirk, but to call it cool? That would be cruel to let that delusion continue for much longer. “But you, you should continue. Maybe it’s a trend that’ll come back.”
“If having a teenage daughter has taught us anything, it’s that you are not cool.” At this, Iona smirked. “Me, though? Well, you’re clearly punching.”
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Zora found herself on guard and suddenly a little concerned when Iona made the sincere motions of someone about to deliver news of heartache or import. But it was a fraud! Zora had, been, for two solid humiliating seconds actually taken in! She barked out a big laugh and pulled her hands away.
"Oh, sod off!" Zora smacked at Iona, unable to hide a wide grin completely. It was falling for Iona's act that offended her more than the comment about her sunglasses.
"Stops people knowing what I'm thinking!" Zora insisted gesturing about her face and eyes. "Mysterious. Inscrutable. It's a thing!"
She'd read it in a book. Or heard it on the wireless. It didn't matter. It worked.
"Maddening woman," Zora huffed. Only Iona could ever fluster her. "Punching a wall is more like it.
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If there was anything to set Iona at ease after an awful day, it was banter with her long-suffering wife. Zora, beautiful as ever, actually began to fall for Iona’s lead up. She even looked concerned, and Iona lapped it up.
Iona leaned in, “Mysterious, inscrutable, ridiculous, gamja, saeng-gang[1], doniol iawn[2]” the redhead started spouting off adjectives along with a couple of random words she’d heard Zora’s parents say the few times they’d agreed to see her. She had quite literally no idea what the words meant, but they were about all that had stuck in her mind from the frosty pair who still didn’t accept her as a daughter-in-law. A quick kiss on the lips was stolen and Iona’s hands found the letters she’d only just passed Zora. She plucked them from her wife’s grasp and began to sift through.
“Bill,” the one got thrown onto the kitchen counter, “boring, boring, nope,” each joined the small pile until Iona stopped at a neat cream coloured envelope (https://absitomen.com/index.php?topic=20818.0) addressed to Madam Ballentyne and Madam Roh. When Iona ripped open the envelope, to find a card and a handful of white petals. “Hm.”
She pulled out the card and read, eyebrows rising. The Spectre estate. “Posh sod.” Finally, Iona looked up at her wife. "You can’t wear sunglasses to this crap, Madam Roh."
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Oh, Merlin, they had called her ginger-pale lesbian wife a 'potato'. Zora shriveled up a little at the memory, of her parents tittering at Iona's expense and pretending they weren't. If Iona was bothered herself by the recollection, she didn't show it. For all her tempers, Iona chose some battles for a laugh, utterly disarming them. Disarming Zora, too.
But Zora wasn't prepared for what was hiding among the envelopes. There were flower petals in the kitchen. Fresh, velvety, fragrant white rose petals. If it was a prank, it was a very gentle one. Zora reached for the card. It was not a prank - it was a wedding invitation for Balfour Spectre and Johann Storm.
"Johann Storm? Did I know this?" Zora asked, doubting herself. She really ought to know.
"I'll find white ones," she said of the sunglasses. She read card again and flipped it over to check the back, as if there might be more. Then she set it back on the worktop. "I want an estate. Buy me an estate, will you? Damn, April in Edinburgh. It's going to be lovely."
Zora seemed almost disappointed to say so. Jealous a bit, maybe, but not exactly that. She and Iona didn't do a proper wedding. They'd both claimed they didn't want one, neither of them the kind to enjoy planning that sort of thing, no money to hire anyone to do it, none mentioning the tense family dynamic.
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“Did you know this?!” Galled, Iona exclaimed at her wife. “Merlin’s balls, woman, if you missed this, you’re a shite auror.” The suggestion of white sunglasses could wait a moment. “I’ve barely been back for two months and seen them gushing all over each other like teenagers spiked with love potion far more than I’d rather. They have lunch together. Out of choice rather than obligation.” The clarification felt necessary after Zora’s one and only visit to Iona’s office for lunch on the day of the anti-werewolf leaflets and the appearance of the murdered brothers in the telephone box lift. Spectre and Storm actually chose to have lunch together because they wanted to. Iona and Zora had spent over a decade working at the Ministry with very few actually knowing they were married until recently.
“Were we ever like that? Did you ever gush over me like a giddy school girl? Or have I always been your dirty secret?” Never a secret maybe, Iona knew how different Zo was when it came to privacy and the lines between work and family. Lifting her hands up to her mass of red curly hair, Iona scraped it back with her fingers into a messy bun which she sealed in place with a hair band. “Anyway, they don’t let people that wear sunglasses indoors own estates, Zo. Too uncool.”
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"Right, right, right," Zora muttered as Iona berated her for having not kept in active memory the romances of boys in other departments. She leaned forward onto the countertop, shifting her stance to let some pressure off her back. The granite was cool on her forearms.
This wasn't the first time Zora's wife had lately commented on their lack of public displays. They had always been career witches in male-dominated professions in a world that wasn't always accepting of women who loved women. An Auror and a werewolf hunter - vulnerability wasn't an asset, sadly. It was a difference between them, Zora still carrying around some shame and resentment about her sexuality. Iona always seemed so much freer in it.
"I gushed," Zora insisted, not helping a little smile. She tiptoed her fingers through the flower petals towards Iona. "I do gush. Just ... not at work."
It didn't need the exception at the end, probably. "There's nothing dirty about us. I just don't need to bring everything about me to the job. It's the job. It doesn't need to meet every need."
Zora didn't often speak so introspectively, but behind Iona's joking tone, Zora knew there was real concern.
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It would be unfair to give Zora a hard time about not being the sort to spill her emotions and shout her love from the rooftops. Iona wasn’t that sort either, but, back in December, it had surprised even her that no one her wife worked with had even known of their connection. It was strange to Iona to have such a divide with people you risked your life with. The WCU had always been close, their own little family. Or so Iona had believed before her attack had led to her being ghosted. Aurors were a different kettle of fish altogether.
“Oh, there is, Zo. I have plenty of dirty thoughts about you.” Iona pointed out with a cheeky smirk and a wiggle of her eyebrows. “Anyway, I should bloody hope it doesn’t meet every need. Imagine going to pinstripes for those needs.” It didn’t bear the thought. Iona reached over and grabbed the invitation back, scanning through it.
“We don’t have to go. It sounds pretentious. But ever since him talking about being lord of the manor, I’ve been intrigued. I know I wouldn’t come to work every day if I was rich. Think of all the fun you could with enough money to own an estate. Think of all of the new cauldrons you could buy.”
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Everything about Iona was colorful. Not sparkling or dazzling, but vibrant and vibrating. Age hadn't dulled it at all. Zora smiled, feeling suddenly content though the retrod topic of discussion was not itself all that comfortable.
"No, I want to go," Zora said, forcing herself to admit it. "Honestly, it could be nice. Everything that's been going on - Kingstreet, Carter, Wav - go to a party that's actually a party. Not a wake in a bar or a mandatory office do."
She paused, then doubled back. "Did Balfour actually say that, 'lord of the manor', about himself? Blind me."