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Meadow on the parish boundary, ~8:20pm Monday May 6th, 1771


The beast had beaten out the bounds, and if modern maps perhaps did not agree precicsely, it knew where Church and village had set the edge of their domain the first time they were bounded, before the present church was built, before the circling stones were moved. Still pounding through bush and briar, sure-footed amongst trees and on the level grass, still fast, still alive, it remembers territories before that with the vague clarity of animals, time measured in heartbeats and seasons rather than hours or years, and dimly feels the roving times before, moving with and as the herds across the ice. Its coat is light now as summer comes on: that winter is simply past, as all winters are as the waxing year bursts forth to bloom.

Up hills, down dales, doubling, sometimes, snorting, scattering rabbits and rooks and maybe stranger things in the shadows, Trugred had spent the day at incredible liberty and run for almost all of it. It had been up Kennick's Camp at an easy canter and run about the top where some fragment of it had been born in iron's first age; seen the both the glistening levels and the Mendips rolling green into the blue distance, and what something of it knew to be Glastonbury Tor raised up and picked out, miraculous, in a shaft of sun. Curious kites and a raven had watched it there, and it had descended at length like their swift glide down the wind.

It had visited hedges still hedges, ditches long silted, filled its lungs with the scent of all passing beasts that pissed on the Roman marker still sat by a road. It had gone down a steep and sudden valley, skittering, broken through bracken, whinnied in that deep and hidden place at the entrance to a long-turfless tomb flanked by two others (there was no sign of a response from the blank blackness of the entrance, and it was satisfied). It had climbed in leaps - alive, labouring, yet powerful enough to feel no discomfort - up over the ancient passage slab and broken out of that dingy much-grown dell to a sky fresh-stained by blue. Trugred's hooves hammered over the land, vibrations twining around bones and down to the stones, hammering it safe.

It had paused, here and there, in once-sacred, quiet groves, or to splash into the delicious coolness of a stream where some part of it, unnamed as all things were within, had lost blue beads and left them to the place's tiny, dancing god or place-soul, the light on the water. The urge to move, to run and race whilst hot blood beat in it had returned swiftly enough, however, and Trugred mapped out the miles in the details of a hundred lifetimes, truly thinking of little save where the next step might be flung. Here was the land, and it was alive, and there was no more in the moment to be wanted in the world.


In this instant, after all, it rushes headlong with dim awareness of flesh and life soon owed to the mortal world, breaking from bushes to gallop hock-deep through long shadows and golding grasses. Mane streaming, tail left to whip where it will, Trugred tears across the meadow, great lungs filling with good grass scent. Of a sudden it circles, finding a spot where the give of the ground feels well underhoof, rears up and plunges as if to roll once more and stain itself with buttercups. Maggie Yendale and Martin Lovelace find themselves dropped in a tangle to the ground, somehow two beings, and a horse skull hung about with ribbons, flowers and black cloth rolling to a halt nearby.

The Doctor lays there on his back, nerves tingling with the flow of so much stimulus, he watches clouds skit across the sky and his senses take in all about him. The hum of a bee flitting from clover flower to clover clover flower seems so loud that it almost drowns the sound of a caterpillar chewing on a leaf, but as the Doctor focuses his attention on that it becomes so distinct, as loud as a horse chewing on a crisp apple. His attention flicks to the song of a skylark aloft above them and as this becomes the centre of his attention it's orchestral notes drown out all other noises.

It is the scent though that pulls his attention from this, the smell of nectar laden meadow blooms, but another scent both familiar and yet relatively new, a scent he feels he has known a lifetime, yet is new to him. He rolls his head to the side and there she is, the one he has shared so many lives with, the one who makes him whole, Maggie!

Martin longs to cling to that oneness and rolling over he pulls her face to his and kisses her on her lips holding her tight to him.

When Doctor and she ceased being Trugred, the light was a rosy gold upon the meadow as the sun settled on the horizon. One moment, they were joined in being the fae beastie; the next, they were not, being once more two distinct individuals and human.

She had stood reeling for a moment with the sudden end to cantering and capering about the hills and leas of the Scorch Norton neighborhoods. Her soul was aflame with the animal exuberance and power of Trugred and the waning fierceness of the victory and the encompassing joy of being united with Doctor soul-to-soul.

Thus, it was most natural when she embraced him as both staggered, coming back to their humanity. And natural, too, when they kissed, sweetly, fiercely. And they sank together into the meadow's cool grass. Then their bodies merged as their souls had been and all was joy and lust ...and love. Eventually, inevitably, night's shadows overtook their pale bodies. Then sleep claimed their minds.

As she slumbered in Martin's arms, Maggie dreamed, dreamed of golden fields and towering forests beyond the wild and foaming sea.

*****   *****   *****   *****   *****   *****   *****   *****   *****   *****   *****   *****   *****   *****   *****   *****   *****

She awakens in his arms, his lips on hers. She smiles and speaks his name. One time she speaks his name aloud.

"Martin"

Then sorrow comes over her, for she knows what he is and knows what she is not. Tears stand in her eyes, regret for all the impossible gulf between them. She caresses his ruddy cheek in the sudden chill of the dawn. Again, as tentative as a butterfly, she kisses those lips, again and finally.

She rises then, her skin all tawny, freckled gooseflesh in the early light. She smiles at the man, as merry a smile as she can manage.

"Well, Doctor, we best set to getting our clothing on and set to rights. 'Tis a fine walk we'll have this morning back to Scorch Norton."

She begins to gather her apparel.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:11, Tue 24 Oct 2023.

The Doctor rises and pulls on his britches, but having done so puts all of his attention to assisting Maggie in finishing dressing herself. He works wordlessly, needing no direction, and his face is unreadable, his thoughts masked by his concentration on the task in hand.

Once complete though, he turns her about and holds her gaze "Maggie. After what we did yesterday" he begins, then smiles at his own choice of words and clarifies "I mean, after what we accomplished yesterday, joined together and with the Trugred."

"Well, if we can do such things, things that I would have thought impossible if I had even thought to think of them! If we can accomplish that, then we can find a way that we can be together. Properly together."

He takes his kerchief and wets it with morning dew from the meadow before wiping her face to remove the streak running from her eye down her cheek. Then placing the kerchief in her hand he closes her fingers over it and picks up his shirt from the ground.

Thrilling to ever brush of his fingers upon her skin, Maggie lets Doctor dress her. No man has ever helped her put clothes on before. When he finishes and has said lovely words and gotten into his shirt, she faces him, closing up the fastenings. Then she places her palms upon his not-bare chest and gazes into his eyes..

"Doctor. 'Tis grateful I am for those words and will always be. But you know as well as I... It cannot be. See me for what I am, which any in Scorch Norton can tell you: a slovenly, slatternly wench, no better than she should be with calloused hands and muddy feet... and a baby but no husband.

"You are a gentleman, in a gentleman's profession. You must find a wife who can bear up your status and bear you children, an heir. My hands are formed to the hoe, not the needle; I cannot embroider or tat fine lace, cannot play the harp or pianoforte, or draw or watercolour. I can barely scrawl my own name nor read much more than that. I am too tall and too strong and rawboned and--

"I am wrong in every way. Naught but shame can come from me. You owe me nothing, Doctor. A friendly smile as we go about our ways in the village is all I will ever ask."

The Doctor smiles as he places his hands on Maggie's, holding them to his chest "What you say may well be true of the state of affairs here in Scotch Norton, here in England even."

"But there are places where beauty is measure in strength of will, where ability with the hoe is far more revered than needlepoint or lace, where true art an music are found in the pristine lands and bird songs, and goodness of heart is recognised over highness of breeding."

"Canada is such a place, and my heart is another. I have seen so much death and destruction, I should like to help bring life and growth. I should like to make something for my own, build a place to live within a slice of wilderness and I can think of no one I would rather do that with than you."

"Please, I know that you have known nothing but Scotch Norton, but believe me when I tell you that there is such beauty... and freedom if you would but consider leaving here."

"You do not have to answer me now, I need to write my friends from His Majesty's service on the subject anyway, see if there is need of doctors in Canada, but if not there, then there will be somewhere where we can be who we are meant to be, and be that together. Please at least consider it."

He sighs "I really should go see if help is needed. Will you walk with me?"

Before he can turn away, Maggie turns over her hands and catches his in her grasp. Her clear and untroubled eyes gaze into his and her face softens.

"If you truly want me, Doct-- Martin, I will go anywhere in the world beside you. And we can find a place like you describe and build a life there... together ... I'll not ask for more. Only... " Her eyes drop and her voice lowers. "Only, I must bring my Jamie, my son. He's a bonny child just twelve month old and never a trouble will he cause."

He feels her hands tremble as she awaits his answer.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:53, Sun 29 Oct 2023.

"But of course" he replies and adds "I think all the more of you for wishing this, it is but more evidence of the greatness of your heart; not that I required such evidence of course."
This message was last edited by the player at 07:48, Sun 29 Oct 2023.

Maggie again locks eyes with Martin with a happy smile.

“Then, Martin Lovelace, I will be yours completely, whether married or handfasted, so long as I have breath.

“Now let us be away to the village and see what need for your skills is there. But let’s not tell of our intentions until I’ve had time to speak of it to my family.”

Martin's wig is found near the top of the dance costume; when Maggie locates them, he winds her beautiful red hair (whatever society might think) gently into a rope for her to wind and tie and pin back under her cap once she's crowned him and given over the horse skull. Trugred does not feel terribly close at present, but the flowers still crowning the costume have revived themselves, blooming as though set in the ground.

The skylark sings, and as they approach the wooded border of the place that kept them through the night other birds become audible: the robin and the blackbirds, the seep-sip! of great tits and thin whistles of gold- and firecrests in denser bushes. A pheasant explodes from the grass near their feet before they get there, but the startlement only leaves them laughing, and they pass under the boughs to an absoloute charm of birds, Maggie reaching down some young lime leaves to tide their fearsome hunger over as they head homewards.

From woods to field-edges they roll their awareness off the landscape and fold it onto a road, one way towards a human place, though hedgerow chaffinches flit about them and hares run and the rooks pass like cinders overhead, looking to pick fields. The sky lightens and they judge their progress by the territory of corncrakes calling loud from one patch to another, and by the increasing incidence of paths and stiles. Mostly there is a very keen awareness of the exact space between them, both when holding hands and when it's better that contact should break: a wonder, an absoloute wonder that at one point there was no space at all.

They browse on sorrel and dog-daisy, and the sweet pinkflowers of marsh mallow whilst passing a quick stream, though nothing quenches their appetite. Truly, the ache serves only to make them feel more alive, and when they scent the hearth-smoke on the wind from Scorch Norton and hurry up the path it seems the village itself knows them, the place where food and folk await them both.

Maggie has tucked the Trugred skull back into her game bag, after a kiss on its bony snout in gratitude . . .and farewell. She knows the entity belongs to Scorch Norton but it seems she soon will not.

It is a pleasant stroll, hand-clasping at times but knowing the exact space that Martin occupies even when she is foraging some yards away and with her back to him. She glances at him from time to time as they walk, eyes sliding stealthily over his face and form, shy and bold at once, smiling when he catches her at it. With Trugred's blessing she knows him better than she has ever known any man before, even her father, even Jamie's father.

At the first scent of hearth-smoke from the village, she turns Martin to face her and wraps him in an all-but-bonecrushing embrace. And she kisses him slowly and deeply until she must gasp for breath. She giggles and says, "Now let us not touch in the village until I can explain things to me family, which is to say my sister Kate. Know that I love you with every beat of my heart wherever I may be." Another kiss, quick and playful and she strides on down the road with a lighter step than is her custom.


[[GM edit: tell the alive sister!]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:11, Fri 03 Nov 2023.

The doctor feels a flow of energy, not a spark as such, but the hairs on the back of his neck rise slightly as though a breeze of cold air blew past them.

He stands there for a long moment watching Maggie stride away, a smile fixed on his face as he watches. Then he starts off after her, stomach growling but wanting to check on the villagers first.