The Proper Care of Rosebushes (Vale)

While I really think that Geldar should just write a compilation of tales called 'The Improper Use of Magic: The Misadventures of Garthen Raelas,' or something, this tale is mine to write! It came out of an amusing chat Geldar and I had that we decided to incorporate into RP... so indeed, the following events did happen last night.

I'm not much of a humour writer but so I'll just call this 'light hearted,' but either way, do enjoy, and please let me know if you have any thoughts on the tale.

==

The Proper Care of Rosebushes

'Do you still think the trees are strange?' I asked, lying on my back in the grass and staring up at the night sky through an arc of gold-and-white branches. 'I think they're lovely. In fact, they are possibly the most beautiful trees I've ever seen. Are you certain they're real? Perhaps someone carved them out of ivory.'

They really were lovely, I thought. Eversong Woods were a world all their own, where nothing seemed quite real. In fact, it was beautiful. The sky was awash with stars, and it was one of those nights that was covered with a sort of golden haze... and unexpectedly, I hiccuped.

'I think, Lady Vale, that you might've had enough brandy. Perhaps it's time to take the short way home.'

Putting a hand over my mouth, I looked quickly sideways at the figure sprawled in the grass next to me. Just as I had been afraid of, he was leaning there on his elbow looking at me with one of the smuggest smirks I had ever seen stuck to a man's face. I opened my mouth to say something cutting and intelligent, and then I noticed the bottle lying on its side between us – In fact, that was the second bottle of twenty-year-old plum brandy that we had gone through during the evening.

I did the only graceful thing I could do under the circumstances. I coughed lightly, hoping desperately that that had been an isolated hiccup. 'You might be right, but–' I lifted a hand – 'You had a lot more than I did.'

'Maybe, but remember, I'm not a lightweight.' And then, still smirking like the cat who had gotten not only the cream but the household goldfish as well, Garthen offered a hand to pull me to my feet and started opening a portal.

The gold and ivory of the cluster of trees spun slightly around me as I stood up, and I rubbed my eyes and focused on the sliver of arcane that was expanding in the air before us. I never had liked walking through portals: say what you will, but the feeling of being dropped into icewater and then ironed flat by a steam engine before wobbling out the other side was never my idea of a nice time. Still, one gets used to these things when one travels with a mage.

'After you,' he said, and as I stepped toward the portal, preparing myself for my daily steamroll experience, I finally thought of a good comeback.

'Just you wait until we're drinking wine!' I called over my shoulder, just as the arcane enveloped me.

Now, let me make one thing clear: I realise that travelling via portal sometimes makes one feel a little unsteady on one's feet when they step through, and that especially at night and after several glasses of brandy, one might even be unfortunate enough to stumble into something on exiting. However, believe me when I say that the experience that greeted me on the other side of this portal had absolutely nothing to do with any of those things. One moment I was being frozen and flattened as usual, and then, while I did indeed feel the cool night air of Stormwind touch my face, I also found myself falling. Not stumbling, because there was no ground underneath my feet, falling, and then–

'Nrgh,' I said, with all appropriate eloquence, trying to collect the wind that had been knocked out of me. I had landed on my arse on something painful, or rather, in something that felt like a jumble of leaves and sticks poking into my back. Then, as I gasped myself back toward able to breathe again, I heard a nearby thud, and then a sudden muffled bout of cursing that could only be Garthen coming to the end of his own exciting ride.

Still it could have been worse, I thought as I struggled to get up, although the bush or shrub or whatever it was seemed to have done an exceptional job of tangling itself up with my dress and my hair. At most some drunk walking around the city in the middle of the night was going to have a scene to laugh at.

'Well, at least it wasn't a fountain,' I said, yanking a leafy branch out of my face and looking for Garthen as I finally managed to sit up. 'Ouch, feckdamn,' I added, clapping a hand to my face as the branch came back to slap me in the eye. Maybe it could get worse. And the night had seemed so promising back in the elven woods, with all the stars and the ridiculously strong plum brandy.

'...use of magic... another fel-damned entry... having someone with me...'

As I stopped swearing at the brambles, I caught a few phrases of Garthen's tirade, peppered with several more phrases of the variety that tend to horrify mothers with small children. He sounded strangely muted, but we had fallen from the same portal, he couldn't be that far away– Then I noticed the reason: he was lying face down in a flowerbed, a few torn stalks clenched in one fist and broken and uprooted blooms scattered all around him. Best of all, he had a rose drooping over one eye.

I couldn't help it, I started laughing. It might have been the half bottle of brandy, or the sight of a mage in a flowerbed, or most likely both, but I sat there in the middle of a garden shrub and laughed until my sides hurt.

'It's not actually that funny,' said Garthen, as he lifted his head and spit out part of a begonia. The rose flopped sideways over his ear, sending me into another fit of giggling. No matter what he said, and in spite of my ripped dress and the bruises we were no doubt going to have, it was funny. In fact it was very funny.

'It's one thing if I open a portal into a lamppost when I'm by myself,' he went on, 'but if I'm travelling with someone I have a responsibility to be careful. There are four hundred and ninety pages on portal usage, and this is–'

'– not the Recluse,' I cut in suddenly. Which, unfortunately, was the truth. I was staring across the flowerbed at a silvery pond with a great big house behind it, looking very imposing in the style of upper-class city manors, with a peaked roof and high hedges all around the property. And as it happened, we were inside those hedges, and I could hear dogs barking.

It occurred to me that even if the manor's guard dogs didn't savage us before the household servants arrived to see what all the fuss was about, it was going to require a great deal of explanation as to how a high class courtesan and a slightly scruffy mage, entrepreneur, and former member of the Argent Dawn had ended up tumbled in the midst of their patch of azaleas in the middle of the night. At best, it was going to be–

'This is going to be very awkward,' said Garthen, spitting out some dirt along with another curse and pointing to the house, from which some lights were suddenly flickering. 'I don't think I want to stay for a social call, so give me your hand, Lady Vale.'

I reached to grab his wrist as a blue glow began to expand through the night-time shadows, opening my mouth to protest that it was a portal that had led to us crushing some unknown nobleman's prize rosebushes in the first place, but as a shout came from somewhere across the garden, and as I realised that the barking of the dogs was suddenly a good deal louder than it had been before, I closed my mouth and practically flung myself through the opening alongside him.

We stumbled forward across neatly trimmed grass, narrowly avoiding colliding with a great oak trunk in the dark, but as I looked up I breathed a great sigh of relief.

'The Recluse,' I said, looking over at Garthen, who seemed to be catching his breath and muttering at the same time. In the lantern-light coming from the inn, I could see that he was covered in earth and still had leaves sticking to his jacket. Still, I knew I didn't look any better, and the brandy was still making my head swim, so I just reached over and took his arm. 'Just stroll through the tavern quickly and we'll escape upstairs for a wash.'

'That might be the best idea either of us have had in awhile,' he said with a slight smirk as he looked me over, no doubt due to the nest of leaves and twigs that my hair had turned into in my attempts to escape from the brambles.

I tossed my head, as we strolled toward the entrance to the Blue Recluse, I glanced over at him, a smirk sliding over my own face. 'By the way, Master Raelas. You look lovely with that rose stuck in your hair.'

His expression right then was by far the best part of the night.

As I said, and I quote:

One word that can describe it, is classy. You`ve captured my charecter well, almost perfect even! And the very ending, priceless. And you have indeed a touch for light hearted stories like this, above everything - it was classy! Once again you deliver epicness! Moar plox!1one

Thank you so much <3 Call me lame, but it means a lot, and I am very relieved that you think it's a decent portrayal of Garthen.

Now you - get to writing more of the famous adventures of Master Raelas!!

I think this was a really great story to read, that gave a good feel of both characters and the situation they got themselves into. Can't say if you captured any characters as they should be (since I'm not Geldar), but for me it was very entertaining!

Thank you Morgeth! I'm really happy to hear that you enjoyed it, and <3 for taking the time to read it. If it was entertaining, I'm delighted. Vale and Garthen have an unfortunate habit of doing foolish things in their travels, so they may well crop up again.