It's a chilly morning and mist wisps the ground. At the top of the hill that the Baines Manse sits upon, most of that mist is visible down along the street, but further off the tops of trees are fogged with white.
The front door of the manse opens, out steps Mavis all bundled up under her house robe and carrying a coffee mug in each hand. Each cup brims with hot cocoa and melting marshmallows, positively steaming hot in the icy air.
"Okay, you," puffs Mavis as she shuffles over in her fuzzy slippers and socks to join Amity on the porch swing. "It's really hot so be careful."
Amity is already snug and cozy in her layers. There's a fuzzy fleece blanket over her lap too. And a hot water bottle shoved under there as well just to be safe! She lifts the blanket with one hand to let Mavis slide in next to her and reaches out to take the cocoa that's offered and carefully balances it as she waits for Mavis to get settled. She grins at Mavis, her head in a beanie and steam from the hot drink fogging her glasses.
"Thanks, Starlight," she says and when the other woman has finally settled down and she takes a lazy sip of the drink. Mmmf. Perfect. "I have to admit, sitting outside and drinking hot chocolate sounded a little crazy at first but this is nice."
Mavis settles under the blanket, smiling cozily at the warmth. She leans back, sighing, "You really think of everything." A hot water bottle is never something that would have even occurred to Mavis, but she sure appreciates the heat it puts out even as she leans against Amity's side to steal a bit more.
Her fingers curl around her cup, overlong robe sleeves almost completely covering her hands. The cocoa is lowered to her lap, covered by the blanket they share. Then she just basks there, watching the slow, cold morning through the screened-in porch with a lazy smile on her lips as she listens to Amity with her head leaned against the Lost woman's shoulder.
"Mm- yeah," she hums, agreeably then answers a statement Amity hadn't stated. "It's cold, but it's so still. Quiet." After a moment, she adds, "Happy Thanksgiving."
"I'm used to being thorough, that's all," Amity replies with a cheeky smile. Amity leans back against Mavis. There's contentment here, contentment she hadn't really expected to find so soon or in this way. It's... nice. She takes another sip of her cocoa and then matches Mavis by squirreling it away underneath her blanket. She sighs happily, her head resting gently agaisnt the smaller woman's. She could get used to this, she really could. Then she blinks.
"Happy Thanksgiving, Mavis," she murmurs, smiles again. "I like the still and quiet. It's relaxing." She closes her eyes and lets out a faint sigh. There is something on her mind, but... hm. She's not sure if she wants to shatter the peaceful morning with a serious discussion. "...There's something I want to talk about, actually."
Mavis has her cocoa on TOP of her lap and over the blanket, but she does snake one hand beneath the coverage to lay atop Amity's nearest thigh. The other hand holds her cocoa by the handle and she lifts it to her lips for a careful sip. It's then that Amity tentatively broaches that "something" she wanted to talk about and, almost imperceptibly, Mavis' eyes widen.
She had assumed, with today being a holiday, that she was safe from this conversation. Here lately, Mavis was evading the subject by catching Amity when she was either too tired to bring it up into existence or, if all else failed, "distracting" her. Ahem-hem. The mortal had even tried to begin the day in the most perfect way by coaxing Amity outside to cozy up and drink hot chocolate. Surely, Amity didn't want to talk about this NOW.
Her gaze cuts over to the Lost and Mavis swallows her cocoa, then lowers her mug. "Hm--m?" she goes, blinking in a politely startled kind of way.
Amity has had a suspicion that Mavis has been avoiding her talking about this, but hasn't felt the need to really push it. Plus Mavis' tits? Really distracting when you get right down to it. She takes a sip of her hot cocoa again, leans into that little squeeze of a hand against her thigh. Then she smiles.
"It's about, you know, all the Faery stuff?" She begins, not quite sure how to start feeling out the subject. "...I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to do, obviously. But. It might be easier to keep you safe if you were, um. Ensorcelled. Which is to say, ah... I can use my glamour to enchant you so that you can see fae things all the time, basically."
It doesn't /really/ help that Amity has got her hands on a mortal possessing keen intuition. Every since November had told her what she was, that'd begun to make more sense for Mavis, but she couldn't really guess how one thing related to the other. She was just on Amity's frequency, more so since the Changeling had opened up to her. Plus, it didn't take a genius to know that Amity felt pressured to ensorcel her or get her to pledge to some Freehold of weirdos. Whatever that was. She was fine without it. Her mind was already stubbornly made on this matter.
She replies, after taking a moment to pretend to mull over Amity's careful wording, "I don't want to see all of the time." The blanket shifts as Mavis pulls away to face Amity, rebalancing her coffee and keeping her hand on the Lost's thigh. "I mean, if it was just you? Or I could turn it off and on?" She fumbles around for the right words. "You're asking to put magic on me that, correct me if I'm wrong, I can't take off. I thought you guys were sworn to secrecy and to, like, try to keep the peace around here. Help each other."
"...I understand," Amity says after a moment of consideration. "If I had a choice I probably wouldn't want to see it all of the time, either," she confesses, gazing back at Mavis with a probing, uncertain look. "And you're right. It's magic that you couldn't take off. It would fade, eventually, if I didn't maintain it but all the same you couldn't make it stop when you wanted." She fidgets. A small movement that might not have been noticeable before Mavis and Amity began to get more intimate.
"We swear all of those things to each other at the Freehold, yes. And it's important for us to help keep each other hidden and safe. And..." She frowns, tries to find words. "Now that you know, we will do our best to help protect you, too. Though none of the others are really bound to do so except by friendship and care for you. And you don't have to pledge to the Freehold. I know that November thinks it would be safer..."
"So," she goes, dabbing her lips with her pink tongue, "if you all pledge then... I mean, why would anyone want to mess with me?" Mavis blinks at Amity, utterly lost herself. Just with a lowercase "L". "And, yeah, November has said as much to me herself, but I've got you." The mortal's legs give a weak kick then she plants her slippers on the wood slats of the porch to set the swing swaying.
"...Because you know us. Because I--because all of us--care about you. That makes..." Amity struggles with her words for a moment. Uncharacteristic. Usually she seems so poised and together about what she's going to say and how to say it. "It means if someone who wants to hurt us--hurt /me/--finds out about you, then... they might decide it's a good idea to come after you instead." Amity doesn't like saying it that way, but it's the truth, isn't it?
"Look, I don't want you to do it if you don't want to. Period."
Mavis arches a brow at Amity, seeming doubtful. "I thought I had to be ensorcelled for some reason," she tells Amity then shrugs and sips her cocoa. Some of the distance in her fades and she turns to snug back against the Lost woman's side, wondering why they'd avoided this conversation for so long. "Well," she declares, "I don't want to. I promise not to go telling people about you guys.. First of all, who would I be telling that didn't think I'm completely cracked?" She flushes and looks down into her cocoa. That'd been close to her reaction when Amity had first told her that fairies were real. "And if someone was going to hurt you-- use me to come after you-- then I think they'd do it one way or the other," Mavis drums on. "I'm pretty sure Widget wouldn't sit by either." After an uncertain pause, she adds, "Or November..."
Amity leans over and presses her lips against Mavis' temple in a warm kiss. She doesn't like thinking about these possibilities, but they're part of her life now. Or it feels that way, anyway. She takes a breath and nods against Mavis' head.
"Then you don't have to do it. It's your decision, not mine or anyone else's." She leans in close and takes another gulp of cocoa. "They wouldn't. They would help me. And I would tear down the highest walls of the most daunting castles in Arcadia to get you back safe and sound, so there's nothing to worry about." She smiles, exuding bravado for a moment.
Mavis grins as she leans into that kiss pressed to her temple. Her fingertips curl into the flesh of Amity's thigh through her clothes and she squeezes, much like a feline flexing her claws. She laughs though, steadying her cocoa, and her laughter comes out with little puffs of air that turn to frost.
"I'd make a terrible scullery maid," she tells Amity truthfully. "You probably wouldn't have to storm the walls, they'd just give me back to you with condolences."
| 