What Comes Next

In the deepest chambers of the Witherbloom Archives, which doubles as a home just as much as it does a place of study, Clara Witherbloom poses a question. 

“Sweetpea, have you ever thought about having kids?”

She watches as Marjorie hears the question, processes it. She’d been in the middle of reading some dusty old book, obviously much beloved, but honestly to Clara it looks so very dry. It’s also not in any language she recognizes, which is true of a lot of things in the Archives. Marjorie herself speaks far more languages than Clara can list, though at the moment every single one of them has escaped her.

Margie, very slowly, shuts the book in her hands and turns to focus her five-eyed gaze on Clara. Clara smiles sheepishly. She’s already snuggled up in bed, the comforter pulled around her shoulders and surrounded by needy kettlecats vying for her warmth, but she shoos Meredith and Tanner away and sits up.

Nervously, Marjorie licks her lips, and then she says in a raspy sort of voice, “Excuse me. What was that, dearheart?”

Clara twiddles with her hair, still smiling. She’s nervous too, and not afraid to admit it, but this is a conversation she wants to have. “Well… I’ve just been thinkin’, is all. I got to talking with Marie last time she visited, about her hatchery work and how rewarding it is for her. She mentioned she and Velvet and Ruena might try having one of their own soon, or fosterin’, and it got me thinking, y’know? I’ve been putzin’ around in the Seas for almost fifty years now. It’d be plum silly if that little girl we basically helped raise had her own kids before we did!”

“I… hadn’t thought about it,” Marjorie replies, still with a deer in headlights look on her face.  “It’s not something I never considered, but it’s been a long time since then.”

Clara makes a sympathetic noise in response. Though her partner is ever secretive, she’s garnered bits and pieces of Margie’s long past, and she can think of more than one reason why she might have left the thought of such things behind. “It doesn’t have to be right now,” she says. “It’s just somethin’ I’ve been wondering about.” 

Tanner and Meredith, nuisances that they are, decide that now is the perfect time to bother Margie, since her hands are free and all. They crawl over her inky dalon, which often curls around her while she reads, and curl up in her lap. She looks down at them, and it feels like an excuse not to meet Clara’s eyes. 

“My parents weren’t the most attentive sort,” Marjorie confesses after a moment. Clara already knew this, but she nods encouragingly anyway. “They saw to it that I was cared for, of course, but I rarely felt loved by them. Their interest in me began and ended as an heiress. I don’t know how to be a mother, Clara.”

And if that ain’t the saddest thing Clara’s ever heard. She’s up instantly, crossing the room and just barely not tripping over Fortuna as she goes, desperate as she is to scoop Marjorie up in her arms. Anything to sweep the deep sadness from her face. Margie makes a surprised little noise to find herself so suddenly wrapped up in a hug, but submits admirably to the way Clara nuzzles their foreheads together.

“Oh, sweetpea,” she sighs out, making herself comfortable even as the kettlecats meow their complaints. The book that was in Margie’s lap is floating nearby now, caught by arcane magic. “I think motherhood is just something we’d have to figure out together. I mean, I don’t even remember my parents!”

“That’s different,” Margie mumbles. “At least you don’t have the weight of their expectations hanging over your shoulders.”

Clara brushes their noses together. “Course it’s different. But that’s kind of the point too, isn’t it? We’re not them, and we don’t have to be them. We can do things our own way.” She considers for a moment, and then asks, “D’you really still think about what they’d want from you?”

Marjorie’s shoulders pull up, drawing attention to the flora growing about her neck. The vibrant blue and red flowers have always struck Clara as gorgeous, but she knows there’s a certain symbolic weight to them. “They’re gone now,” Margie replies, “and it’s been a long time. Still… Sometimes, I suppose, it’s hard not to. I know they approved of the Archives, but I didn’t do it for them.” She laughs quietly, dry and humorless. “They’d approve of continuing the Witherbloom line, too, I’m sure.”

“But this ain’t for them, either!” Clara says with enough force that Margie blinks. She tones it down a little bit, nuzzling Marjorie apologetically. “Sorry, hon. I just hate the idea that someone could raise a little one as anything other than an act of love.”

To that, her partner is quiet, but something in her slackens. Her shoulders slump, and she wraps her arms around Clara. Even after years together, it takes her time to yield to the affection Clara pours over her. Every time she does it feels so warm and genuine, like a bloom tasting the sun for the first time in ages.

“I’ll think about it,” Margie concedes, soft and quiet, into the fluff of her neck. 

“Okay, sweetpea,” Clara agrees, stroking her hair. “Whenever you’re ready.”

***

It takes some time for the subject to come up again, and in the interim Clara fields curious looks from Basil and Agnes in equal measure and knows Marjorie must have asked their opinions and then sworn them to silence. Basil especially is prone to grinning and making excuses when she asks, “And just what is so funny, buster?”

He escapes her line of questioning - she lets him go, really, because she knows that Margie will tell her what she’s thinking about when she’s ready, but Basil’s smiling does make her hopeful for the answer.

She’s just gotten back to the Archives from the diner and is shrugging out of her borrowed butterfly wing cloak when she sees Margie waiting in the foyer. Just behind her, Basil is surreptitiously minding his own business, working the front desk like he’s not eavesdropping on everything they’re about to say. Clara has little doubt Aggy is around somewhere as well, though her kitbull sister-in-law is as always difficult to spot when she doesn’t wish to be seen.

Margie stands up a little straighter when she sees her, and Clara hurries in to give her a quick kiss.

“Howdy, sweetpea!”

“Hello, darling,” she says, aiming for smooth and missing by dint of just how well Clara has come to know her over these past few years. There’s a nervous tilt to her shoulders, and her voice hitches just a little. “I have something I want to show you.”

Clara smiles widely and doesn’t even tease Margie for waiting there like an awkward duck, she’s so excited. “‘n what’s that?”

“Ah,” Marjorie says, glancing back at the desk where Basil is steadfastly rearranging papers. His ears twitch, but he carefully does not look up. His crooked smile gives him away, but Clara doesn’t call him out on it. “Perhaps we could have this discussion away from prying eyes. That means you as well, Agnes.”

There’s a muffled thud from a few shelves over, as well as a low curse. Clara muffles her laughter in her palm and then takes Margie’s hands in hers.

“Sure thing, hon! Lead the way.”

She catches a glimpse of Basil’s encouraging grin as Marjorie does just that. He mouths the words ‘you got this’ to them both, but if Margie sees she doesn’t give any indication. She’s too busy leading Clara down the winding paths of the Archives, a task which would be difficult for any other person. Even after a few years of calling this place home, Clara still gets lost sometimes, and wanders endlessly until she turns up somewhere familiar or one of the archivists finds her. Thanks to the necklace Margie made, the wards don’t bother her, but this place is still a labyrinth in its own right.

They take a few turns through shelves that feel endless, passing by familiar and unfamiliar stacks alike. Eventually it becomes clear that Margie is leading her to one of the many quiet work rooms hidden throughout the Archives.

It’s one of the less cramped ones, with room enough for two people and then some. There’s a wide work table set up with all sorts of inks and paints and special parchment, as well as that darned Fate’s Focus that has, to Clara’s chagrin, become something quite good at recording fond memories. The room is warmly lit by arcane lanterns that flicker on as the two of them enter, probably at Margie’s behest.

“What’s all this?” Clara asks, approaching the table. She’s generally hesitant to touch things that are just lying around in the Archives, as there’s always a chance that these things are very cursed, but she doubts that Marjorie would explicitly take her to a room of cursed bits and baubles.

“I did some thinking,” Marjorie replies, still a touch nervous, “and a bit of research. I thought, perhaps… We could start on a mask for a seedling of our own?”

Clara squeals, scooping Margie up and pressing little kisses across her face. “Oh, really, darlin’? Truly?”

“Yes, dear,” replies her sweet wife, flustered. “From what I’ve read, I’ve found that a seedling takes some time to create. You have to make the mask, and then some sort of small form to plant it with. If all of that’s done properly, and in a magical enough place, some time from now the little one will sprout from the earth. My best estimate is several months from now, given where we are.”

Clara knows this, roughly, but not as intimately as a painted satyr made that way. She is, after all, a satyr resurrected. Still, she can’t help but smile. “That’s great, hun! How do we start?”

“Well…” Marjorie separates from her, but takes her hand to lead her back to the table. “Wood is traditional, but it’s not my medium of choice. To give them the best chance to grow, I thought paper might do well. And, ah…” She smiles softly, fondly, running her fingertips over the parchment on the table. “The two of you would match, then.” 

Clara beams, her heart all a-flutter. “That sounds mighty fine, Margie.”

Margie gives her hand a squeeze before letting go, reaching for quill and ink and scissors. “I’m glad you think so. The next step is, well… Carving, I suppose, though for us it will be more like drawing. I’m going to make a few sigils, and then…”

“Arts and crafts!” Clara says, cheerful.

“Well… Yes!” Margie laughs softly, seeming a touch embarrassed. 

“We’ll have to try to make them look like us!” 

“I--I suppose we will!”

There’s a part of Clara that wants to be nervous - they’re making the mask of a seedling that they intend to raise - and yet she finds she’s so excited that she simply can’t be. She picks up the camera and begins to snap pictures as Marjorie draws oval face shapes on the wide swathe of parchment, and then begins to ink in arcane sigils.

“This will be the back of the mask,” she explains distantly as she works, her smaller mundane eyes pinched shut. The runes of her largest eyes are luminous in her focus, and quite beautiful. “I’m making several, in case we make a mistake, but only the one we plant with the form will sprout, barring any… incidents.”

Taken by the idea of five little seedlings running around the Archives because of one of those incidents, Clara begins to giggle. She knows that the two of them certainly aren’t equipped to handle five new children, but still. Marjorie glances up and raises her eyebrows like she knows exactly what Clara is thinking. Her ears twitch, and then she goes back to work.

Together they absolutely ruin one of the face shapes Marjorie cuts out, with too much paint and indelicate, distracted hands - Clara takes a few more pictures to commemorate - but around their third attempt they begin to get the hang of it. Marjorie is quite good with inks, even if Clara is not, and Clara has something of a sense for the shape of things. 

In the end, after much laughter and joy, they have three workable masks from which to choose. All of them are quite good in their own unique ways, with their own little flaws. The two satyrs stand over the masks of their new potential children, covered in paint from a few hours’ work. 

Clara is so happy she could cry. 

She is crying, a little bit.

“Oh, sweetpea, I can’t choose. I love all of them.”

Marjorie wipes a smudge of ink from her face. “I… didn’t consider that predicament when I thought we should make extras. I just wanted to be sure it would work. We could, ah. Pick one at random?’

“I--” Clara laughs, rubbing her eyes. “Sure, sugar, I guess that’d work! It’d at least feel like I’m not picking favorites. We can save the other two, can’t we? If we decide we’re alright at this mom thing?”

“Of course,” Marjorie says, her face softening considerably. “Close your eyes, dearheart. I’m going to shuffle them, and you can pick one.”

Clara closes her eyes, listening as Marjorie begins to cast a spell. It’s one of her illusions, she thinks. The language is playful and lilting, like many of Margie’s verbal illusory spells. When Clara opens her eyes again, all the masks are shimmering and shifted, made magically indistinct from one another for Clara to make her decision without bias.

She waffles for a long moment, and then picks the one on the right at random. When she taps her finger to it, it reveals the mask she’s chosen.

She can’t help it.

She starts to cry in earnest, giggling.

“Yeah,” she says, sniffling. “They’ll do fine.”