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femslashficlets2020-06-28 01:47 pm
ilthit) wrote in femslashficlets2020-06-28 01:47 pm
[266] The Wintertowne Wedding (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell)
Title: The Wintertowne Wedding
Fandom: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Pairing: Emma Pole/Flora Greysteel
Rating: explicit
Prompt: 266 Hesitate
Word Count: 1,000
Summary: Post-canon speculative AU in which marriages are redefined in English law as contracts between two persons, rather than a man and a woman.
Contains: Magical genderswaps as a background detail.
Excerpt from The Life of Helena Wintertowne by Charlotte Montrouge, 1906:
-
The wedding was held at the local parish in the Greysteel’s home county. Flora may have preferred a quieter wedding, but that would simply not do—not with such a bride, whom all her relations were craning their necks to get a better glimpse of. As Emma was older, custom dictated she stand with the minister while Flora’s father walk her down the aisle, and so they did, though truth be told Flora wanted to sprint down through the church and fling herself into Emma’s arms. It was one of many desires she had never seriously considered giving in to.
The fire in Emma’s eyes when they joined hands at the alter uplifted her nerves and transported her ahead into their bedchamber. They would be alone—truly alone, truly intimate—and no matter how interminable the ceremony, the celebrations, and the preceding wait, it would be worth it.
-
“Of course, they cannot consummate,” Flora’s third cousin once removed remarked at the reception, in an old woman’s stage whisper. “Not unless they hire another magician, and the prices are only going up. They had better hurry.”
Emma leaned in to Flora’s burning ear and whispered, making her giggle. They had not ran ahead of themselves—even with the world turned upside down, Flora would not go so far—but they had found out enough to be sure the cousin was quite mistaken.
-
“I do not know what to do,” said Flora, warm with the odd combination of need and relaxation that overtook her whenever Emma kissed and caressed her, whenever she could feel the soft fall of Emma’s hair between her fingers and her lips against her lips. They had always stopped before the confusion of sensations could resolve itself; but now they were in their own bed, in Emma’s house—their house—in Shropshire. Emma’s round shoulder had slipped out of her loose undergarment, and Flora’s legs twitched to twine around her.
“Talk to me, love,” Emma whispered between teasing little love bites at her neck. “Tell me if you want me to stop, or go back, or do something differently—”
Emma’s fingers traced a line up Flora’s leg, under her bunched-up chemise, and found a slickness at her crotch that reduced them both into wordless moans. “Apply your th-theory, and I sh-shall,” Flora stammered, bucking her hips against Emma’s touch. Her body felt like molten metal.
Emma’s fingers slipped up and down her cleft, then curled lightly in, and Flora threw her head back against the pillows, letting her body talk over her strangled words.
-
C. Montrouge:
Fandom: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Pairing: Emma Pole/Flora Greysteel
Rating: explicit
Prompt: 266 Hesitate
Word Count: 1,000
Summary: Post-canon speculative AU in which marriages are redefined in English law as contracts between two persons, rather than a man and a woman.
Contains: Magical genderswaps as a background detail.
Excerpt from The Life of Helena Wintertowne by Charlotte Montrouge, 1906:
It became apparent shortly after the Restoration of English Magic that legislating the use of the art would be precisely as difficult as Gilbert Norrell himself had once predicted. Workers hexed their employers; masters cursed their servants; wives befuddled their husbands’ mistresses, and farmers grew corn so tall and fine that any county not in possession of a magician was reduced to producing feed for livestock only.
One of the most vexing subjects for the fledgling magical court was the propensity of magicians to change their sex, and sometimes species, at will. The question of how to apply the law in these cases gained some urgency when one of the royal princesses managed to secure herself a transformation and married her handmaiden, to which there was no existing counter in the English law.
The law was promptly changed, and changed again (see Chapter 3), in an effort to curtail abuses and clarify rights of succession and possession. No daughter was to inherit her father if she was female at the time of the writing of the will; no son could inherit if he was not a male at the time. This gave men with no sons an opportunity to pass their fortune on to their female offspring, should they choose, but, the parliament hoped, would prevent scheming daughters from cheating their way into an inheritance. Marriages, in the end, were made social contracts between two persons, rather than a man and a woman—a solution the parliament thought flawless until they went home to their wives, and heard what tumultuous effect it had had on the marriage market
The main problem, as the ladies explained the lawmakers, was that given the choice, any gentleman sensible of his economy would only consider marrying another gentleman, or a woman who had already inherited, as this allowed them to join two fortunes. Ladies barred from inheritance were now unlikely to marry at all. The entire social guidebook would have to be reworked.
But reworked it was, and the human heart not always being perfectly sensible in its pursuit of companionship, on rare occasion, ladies married ladies.
Dr Lancelot Greysteel did not oppose his daughter’s match with Miss Wintertowne—Lady Pole as she had been. The lady was wealthy in her own right, intelligent, influential, and utterly in love with Flora. In this way, his fortune was secured to his child, rather than to a cousin or nephew. Inheritance had been a worry—but even a greater worry had been the scarcity of gentlemen that had ever interested his daughter. He had begun to despair of her future.
The future had turned out like nothing any of them had expected. Flora was herself a student of magic by 1821, while her fiancée was its most outspoken critic, yet somehow they had met in the middle and found a way to advocate together. Dr Greysteel recorded in his letters (see notes at the end of the chapter) that he did not understand all of what they spoke of, but he recognized the intelligence that ran through their quickfire exchanges; and he understood that Flora was happy.
One of the most vexing subjects for the fledgling magical court was the propensity of magicians to change their sex, and sometimes species, at will. The question of how to apply the law in these cases gained some urgency when one of the royal princesses managed to secure herself a transformation and married her handmaiden, to which there was no existing counter in the English law.
The law was promptly changed, and changed again (see Chapter 3), in an effort to curtail abuses and clarify rights of succession and possession. No daughter was to inherit her father if she was female at the time of the writing of the will; no son could inherit if he was not a male at the time. This gave men with no sons an opportunity to pass their fortune on to their female offspring, should they choose, but, the parliament hoped, would prevent scheming daughters from cheating their way into an inheritance. Marriages, in the end, were made social contracts between two persons, rather than a man and a woman—a solution the parliament thought flawless until they went home to their wives, and heard what tumultuous effect it had had on the marriage market
The main problem, as the ladies explained the lawmakers, was that given the choice, any gentleman sensible of his economy would only consider marrying another gentleman, or a woman who had already inherited, as this allowed them to join two fortunes. Ladies barred from inheritance were now unlikely to marry at all. The entire social guidebook would have to be reworked.
But reworked it was, and the human heart not always being perfectly sensible in its pursuit of companionship, on rare occasion, ladies married ladies.
Dr Lancelot Greysteel did not oppose his daughter’s match with Miss Wintertowne—Lady Pole as she had been. The lady was wealthy in her own right, intelligent, influential, and utterly in love with Flora. In this way, his fortune was secured to his child, rather than to a cousin or nephew. Inheritance had been a worry—but even a greater worry had been the scarcity of gentlemen that had ever interested his daughter. He had begun to despair of her future.
The future had turned out like nothing any of them had expected. Flora was herself a student of magic by 1821, while her fiancée was its most outspoken critic, yet somehow they had met in the middle and found a way to advocate together. Dr Greysteel recorded in his letters (see notes at the end of the chapter) that he did not understand all of what they spoke of, but he recognized the intelligence that ran through their quickfire exchanges; and he understood that Flora was happy.
-
The wedding was held at the local parish in the Greysteel’s home county. Flora may have preferred a quieter wedding, but that would simply not do—not with such a bride, whom all her relations were craning their necks to get a better glimpse of. As Emma was older, custom dictated she stand with the minister while Flora’s father walk her down the aisle, and so they did, though truth be told Flora wanted to sprint down through the church and fling herself into Emma’s arms. It was one of many desires she had never seriously considered giving in to.
The fire in Emma’s eyes when they joined hands at the alter uplifted her nerves and transported her ahead into their bedchamber. They would be alone—truly alone, truly intimate—and no matter how interminable the ceremony, the celebrations, and the preceding wait, it would be worth it.
-
“Of course, they cannot consummate,” Flora’s third cousin once removed remarked at the reception, in an old woman’s stage whisper. “Not unless they hire another magician, and the prices are only going up. They had better hurry.”
Emma leaned in to Flora’s burning ear and whispered, making her giggle. They had not ran ahead of themselves—even with the world turned upside down, Flora would not go so far—but they had found out enough to be sure the cousin was quite mistaken.
-
“I do not know what to do,” said Flora, warm with the odd combination of need and relaxation that overtook her whenever Emma kissed and caressed her, whenever she could feel the soft fall of Emma’s hair between her fingers and her lips against her lips. They had always stopped before the confusion of sensations could resolve itself; but now they were in their own bed, in Emma’s house—their house—in Shropshire. Emma’s round shoulder had slipped out of her loose undergarment, and Flora’s legs twitched to twine around her.
“Talk to me, love,” Emma whispered between teasing little love bites at her neck. “Tell me if you want me to stop, or go back, or do something differently—”
Emma’s fingers traced a line up Flora’s leg, under her bunched-up chemise, and found a slickness at her crotch that reduced them both into wordless moans. “Apply your th-theory, and I sh-shall,” Flora stammered, bucking her hips against Emma’s touch. Her body felt like molten metal.
Emma’s fingers slipped up and down her cleft, then curled lightly in, and Flora threw her head back against the pillows, letting her body talk over her strangled words.
-
C. Montrouge:
In the spring of the following year, the Wintertownes hosted a symposium on magic in the house which was to become one of the landmarks of the new magical order; this was, of course, long before the Norrellite revival, but premonitions of it would later be seen in the Shropshire convention; then again, other scholars saw it as a last hurrah for the Strangeite faction, before that devolved into the modern magical opposition movements.
The Wintertownes themselves became the last couple to wed the two points of view in their joint writings, which no doubt influenced the future of their illustrious daughter, then yet to be born…
The Wintertownes themselves became the last couple to wed the two points of view in their joint writings, which no doubt influenced the future of their illustrious daughter, then yet to be born…