[One Finds An Unsigned Note, Weather-sodden And Ink-bled, Slid Beneath The Door Of That Flourishing Shop.]Never

[One finds an unsigned note, weather-sodden and ink-bled, slid beneath the door of that flourishing shop.] Never did get that garrote from you, pretty miss. I’ll be by for it in three days time; and I hope you’ll keep the lamp lit for me.

Milli read the note again, breath held. She fingered the necklace of bones on the exquisite gold chain around her neck. Ains was back. Her fingers drifted over the ink on the parchment. She'd missed the hound so.

Carefully she folded the note and put it in her pocket, then went to find the garrote. She placed it in a nice box, with a ribbon green she'd been saving for something special.

Milli smiled. Seeing old friends again made her happy.

The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.

Things were fine until they weren’t, but in retrospect she should have suspected something was wrong. People she knew and trusted grew quickly and uncharacteristically tense and withdrawn. Those who were of a more jumpy nature disappeared entirely. And Jack became strained, one with too much on his shoulders, desperately looking for someone to unload it on. She tried to share the burden, but he protected her even from this. He always protected her.

And then even Jack was gone.

She heard from one of the locals that the Stone Mason’s Guild Hall had been ransacked. And when she checked his room at the Lion’s Shadow, she found it equally ruined. His personal belongings were gone. Whether that meant he’d left before whoever did this got there or they had taken everything when they took him, she didn’t know.

Like the lamps in the windows of a house, her sources of information went dark. Something happened with the Hangmen, she gathered, though what she didn’t know. But people were scattering to the winds.

From then on, it was delicate. She provided what money and supplies she could to those leaving. She didn’t go to Divinity’s Reach. She kept her store open and if a Seraph stopped in once or twice, she showed them only the face of a shopkeeper, though she was left trembling and sweating after.

She specifically avoided news. She didn’t want to know if friends were being tried and hanged. She wanted to space out her heartbreaks.

In a few weeks, she was calmer. Things were back to relative normal. If the shop wasn’t as prosperous, that was because she’d spent the extra on her friends. On buying them safety. It wasn’t something she could regret.

Milli was left in the rubble of what had once been. So she did what she always did. She picked up the pieces and moved on.

Nothing about the house had changed, but something was different. Vases were more likely not to have flowers and those flowers that were tended were of a darker hue. The servants, always inobtrusive, seemed to bristle with an unknown emotion, perhaps anger or even fear. And there was a sort of silence, not that of muffled shoes on thick carpet, but of a -lack- of sound: the chortle of a young man and the playful, gruff noises of a faithful hound. Though she didn't know it, Lady Valister was escorted into the same parlor where Claire Norrington had first met Havelock, a child his parents couldn't keep. There was a certain amount of poetry to it, that his presence in her life ended where it had began. She had been informed that the pair of them had left, had read Havelock's hasty, vague note. Had been told, later, of Livinia's marriage to the man they had been running from. Claire Norrington was not a woman who deluded herself. She knew what was coming. The parlor was a shining place, placed at a corner where windows in each wall could catch the afternoon light. The flowers in the vase on the central table were lilies. The couches and chairs were white with small flower patterns embroidered carefully in silk, meant to be admired more than occupied. Claire was the dark spot in the room, her dress a dark shade of green highlighted in blue. She sat on the couch, her saucer in one hand, teacup in the other, watching the world through the window. Claire looked up when Livinia was announced. She did not smile. "Lady Livinia."

I know that every skritt, dredge and quaggan seem to be doing a giveaway recently, but I think that this one will definitely be worth your likes, reblogs and follows. 800 gems worth of items folks!

Something that I and other people deal with. All I can do is ask for forgiveness and try harder to not let my problems make relationships unbearable to be with.