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femslashficlets2015-07-14 03:09 pm
ilthit) wrote in femslashficlets2015-07-14 03:09 pm
#015 - Lady Pole in Venice - An Excerpt (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell)
Title: Lady Pole in Venice - An Excerpt
Fandom: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Pairing: Lady Pole/Arabella Strange(/Flora Greysteel)
Rating: PG
Prompt: #015 - mask
Word Count: 800
In the spring of 1821 Venice was experiencing a minor fad for Englishness and English magic, which took its fascination less from those English men and women who flocked to Italy for its poetry and history and more from the delightful subversiveness of the idea that any country other than Italy could have anything of cultural interest to offer. At the heart of this fad was the romance of Lady Pole.
"Don't mind it, my love," said Arabella and pulled Emma into an arched passageway as a gondola filled with revelers floated by. Venice's once-famous carnival had been forbidden more than two decades ago, but who can order young people not to celebrate? The party in the gondola had put on feathers and cloth-flowers, beaded dresses and jackets, and thus created their own little garden of expensive flowers within the narrow oblong of the boat. The women - three of them - all wore serene white masks with a red glass rose glued at the mouth.
"Must my history follow me everywhere?" cried Emma, her fists clenched in the folds of her dress. "If only I could make the world forget what others made me and listen to what I have to say now that I have my voice back. My publisher in England is still sending me requests for revision. Obstinate man!"
"I doubt very much anyone can ever silence you again," said Arabella, and spoke of other things, as she had when they had been friends in London and she had taken Emma for a madwoman - of the Lent mass, the arrangements of flowers outside the church, of Henry's English garden and the maples he intended to plant, and the peculiarities of American weather patterns that created such diverse climes. She lamented that there was no accurate weather magic available(1), and thus found herself back on the sorest of subjects. Emma, however, was placated enough to allow it, and the two friends made their way to her house. The wind was giving Emma a headache.
"Will you not return to England this summer?" asked Arabella as a maid set down their tea and refreshments. "Flora and I would be happy to receive you at our cottage, as of course would Dr Greysteel at his house. Flora is an excellent writer with several articles published under her nom de plume, and if she, Mr Segundus and Miss Grey all apply their pens in your favour, I dare say your publisher will accept whatever manuscript you choose to provide."
Emma smiled over the rim of her cup. "Would that not be awkward? I understand she is once more your particular friend."
"Oh!" Arabella coloured. "As to that... It does not do to be a selfish friend. I love you both very dearly. I see no reason to apply the jealousies of common love affairs to... friendships."
"What an admirable sentiment," said Emma with a wicked smile and lay her hand lightly upon Arabella's. "And after all, three can lie in a bed quite as comfortably as two, can't they?"
Arabella's breath caught. In the years since their imprisonment, her sparkle and life had returned to full bloom, while Emma's character had turned first into towering fury, then forged to a will of steel before which even her mother quivered. Her desire was a hard and jagged thing, now, while Arabella's played, sang, enticed.
"I can think of a second metaphor for a rose at a woman's mouth," said Arabella, and it was Emma's turn to catch her breath.
-
(1) Before Vice-Admiral Fitzroy's work with weather barometers in the 1850s, the world had no better system of predicting the weather than the ancient professional knowledge of fishermen and farmers, who of course were not gentlemen and therefore not considered reliable. As Mr Norrell had concluded during his long seclusion before the Magical Restoration in England, magic cannot predict the future unless, like the Raven King's "prophecy" of the two magicians, it causes that future to unfold. By 1820, the prohibition against weather magic was already in place in the rewritten English magical law.
The problem of weather prediction therefore continued to stump magicians. What was needed was an experienced naval man with a technologically adept mind to engineer a system by which storms could be predicted, based on the working of the climate and the transmitting of information from various points to create a larger picture of a weather occurrence already in motion. Even today, magical weather prediction rests more on the natural science Fitzroy employed than on the magic itself, which consists of the simplest kind of transmitting and balancing spells.
Robert Fitzroy is, of course, also remembered as a devout Christian and the man who so aptly described to the Royal Geographic Society the remarkable motions and formations of earth in South-America.
Fandom: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
Pairing: Lady Pole/Arabella Strange(/Flora Greysteel)
Rating: PG
Prompt: #015 - mask
Word Count: 800
In the spring of 1821 Venice was experiencing a minor fad for Englishness and English magic, which took its fascination less from those English men and women who flocked to Italy for its poetry and history and more from the delightful subversiveness of the idea that any country other than Italy could have anything of cultural interest to offer. At the heart of this fad was the romance of Lady Pole.
"Don't mind it, my love," said Arabella and pulled Emma into an arched passageway as a gondola filled with revelers floated by. Venice's once-famous carnival had been forbidden more than two decades ago, but who can order young people not to celebrate? The party in the gondola had put on feathers and cloth-flowers, beaded dresses and jackets, and thus created their own little garden of expensive flowers within the narrow oblong of the boat. The women - three of them - all wore serene white masks with a red glass rose glued at the mouth.
"Must my history follow me everywhere?" cried Emma, her fists clenched in the folds of her dress. "If only I could make the world forget what others made me and listen to what I have to say now that I have my voice back. My publisher in England is still sending me requests for revision. Obstinate man!"
"I doubt very much anyone can ever silence you again," said Arabella, and spoke of other things, as she had when they had been friends in London and she had taken Emma for a madwoman - of the Lent mass, the arrangements of flowers outside the church, of Henry's English garden and the maples he intended to plant, and the peculiarities of American weather patterns that created such diverse climes. She lamented that there was no accurate weather magic available(1), and thus found herself back on the sorest of subjects. Emma, however, was placated enough to allow it, and the two friends made their way to her house. The wind was giving Emma a headache.
"Will you not return to England this summer?" asked Arabella as a maid set down their tea and refreshments. "Flora and I would be happy to receive you at our cottage, as of course would Dr Greysteel at his house. Flora is an excellent writer with several articles published under her nom de plume, and if she, Mr Segundus and Miss Grey all apply their pens in your favour, I dare say your publisher will accept whatever manuscript you choose to provide."
Emma smiled over the rim of her cup. "Would that not be awkward? I understand she is once more your particular friend."
"Oh!" Arabella coloured. "As to that... It does not do to be a selfish friend. I love you both very dearly. I see no reason to apply the jealousies of common love affairs to... friendships."
"What an admirable sentiment," said Emma with a wicked smile and lay her hand lightly upon Arabella's. "And after all, three can lie in a bed quite as comfortably as two, can't they?"
Arabella's breath caught. In the years since their imprisonment, her sparkle and life had returned to full bloom, while Emma's character had turned first into towering fury, then forged to a will of steel before which even her mother quivered. Her desire was a hard and jagged thing, now, while Arabella's played, sang, enticed.
"I can think of a second metaphor for a rose at a woman's mouth," said Arabella, and it was Emma's turn to catch her breath.
-
(1) Before Vice-Admiral Fitzroy's work with weather barometers in the 1850s, the world had no better system of predicting the weather than the ancient professional knowledge of fishermen and farmers, who of course were not gentlemen and therefore not considered reliable. As Mr Norrell had concluded during his long seclusion before the Magical Restoration in England, magic cannot predict the future unless, like the Raven King's "prophecy" of the two magicians, it causes that future to unfold. By 1820, the prohibition against weather magic was already in place in the rewritten English magical law.
The problem of weather prediction therefore continued to stump magicians. What was needed was an experienced naval man with a technologically adept mind to engineer a system by which storms could be predicted, based on the working of the climate and the transmitting of information from various points to create a larger picture of a weather occurrence already in motion. Even today, magical weather prediction rests more on the natural science Fitzroy employed than on the magic itself, which consists of the simplest kind of transmitting and balancing spells.
Robert Fitzroy is, of course, also remembered as a devout Christian and the man who so aptly described to the Royal Geographic Society the remarkable motions and formations of earth in South-America.
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