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Elsewhere Accepted / Linden Laine

« on: 14/06/2019 at 20:52 »

E L S E W H E R E A D U L T

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Linden Laine
Gender: Male
Age: 28
Blood Status: Halfblood

Education: Hogwarts, Ravenclaw ‘46

Residence: London

Occupation: Perfumer

Do you plan to have a connection to a particular existing place (for example: the Ministry, Shrieking Shack) or to take over an existing shop in need of new management? No.

Requested Magic Levels:

Charms: 6
Divination: 12
Transfiguration: 8
Summoning: 6

Do you wish to be approved as a group with any other characters? If so who and for what IC reason? N/A

Please list any other characters you already have at the site:
Icarus+

Biography:
“Neroli. Raw honey. Brandy, and almond. And a hint of tonka absolute, just next to the ambergris.”

Renato.

It clung to the cloth, at once both setting and diamond: a diamond so beautifully cut, so only the simple and the blind would not see how clearly it shone. I would say nothing about what it meant.

He had worn it every day of his storied career, like the spell that kept him on top. I remember it strongest on the day that we met.

My father owned Laine To Rest Funeral Parlour, and I was the junior mortician. Per his wishes, I was meant to take it over when he retired or died, whichever came first; I spent much of my time between services staring at the caskets on display, both outcomes proffering equal dread. I thanked Merlin and Morgana every morning for the adamance that his company name was the cleverest in the business, or Laine and Son would have sealed my fate with every next organ slipped into a jar.

It wasn’t that I feared or loathed the solemn dead. It was that the whole business bore the most unbearable reek to which I had never accustomed.

I went into many services without the details, my father having handled the sales, the embalming, the cosmetics. It was my job to prepare the space and the mourners— decor and seating, coats, flowers, brooms. I relaxed only when the final guests were settled, but not on that day.

Renato was speaking at this service with a handkerchief over his nose as if suffering a cold, voice bell-clear as if he were not. I, the steadfast usher at the back, pausing at the sight, held my breath against the lilies, the teak, the miasma-tainted hall. And in the middle of the eulogy, he looked at me, witnessed my own sensitivity to the flower arrangements— and the coffin, the crying, the elderly, the dead—

After the service, I was certain I should not stay.

He took me by the arm as I dared turn away, but caught me by the nose. His own, he kept covered. “You can’t do this,” he said to me beneath that square of linen, and in silence I agreed. I could feel my eyes dilate for more than just those cornflower blues. “Come to work for me or you’ll destroy a gift.”

I found it difficult, as usual, to say no. Indeed, his fragrance made it impossible. I swear that bouquet stirred me from a twenty-year dream. Talk about a wake.

“It’s a custom blend.” I returned the handkerchief to unimpressed Aurors. “Personal.”

He claimed me as an apprentice before I had the chance to ask, wafting essences at me, dabbing me with— I still don’t know what. But I learned every vial in a fragrant week’s time, from Abramelin to zinnia, and all the notes between. Powerful, intoxicating, magic. But how? Renato watched me every time, expecting something in my eyes like dawn, like dew, to light. God, and when they did—

“Tell me everything about it, Linden!” his fevered eyes begged as he took me by the shoulders and laughed. “Who are they? Where are you? How am I?”

What scared me was not the flame of life that burst like madness into him, it was that I could tell him, quite precisely, exactly what he’d asked. To this day, sassafras will always excite me with that grin. I can feel his heartbeat.

I filled notebooks with the musings of a mused nose, and he devoured them the moment my pen lifted from page. We talked then about time in a bottle, memory distilled, love absolute. We blended our breakfasts (blueberry, maple, lavender, lemon), our long afternoons (lignin and brandy and sandalwood, rye)— we sold eau de toilette tickets to a petitgrain romance. We watched people from the shop window fall instantly in love. But I watched him in the ozone of Brighton Beach nights, and smelled him searching, still.

He locked himself in his “studio” with the perfume organ for days at a time, and out of this workshop came magic. Renato emerged with concoctions and grey hair and vials that read Hexbreaker, Future Sight, Best Served Ice-Cold. He ignored my questions, smiled thinly, and locked thrice over the door.

Over the years, as I worked to distill the ingredients of his finest brews, I caught only glances of his secrets there. A glimpse of a list with lines violently through, bubbles and a whisper of decanters, but always a sweetness (neroli!) I could have eaten with a spoon. How I itched sometimes to be in there! How I begged to be taught.

“You haven’t perfected your heart notes yet, my dear. But you’re so, so close, I can smell it.”

“Look, I don’t know where he’s gone,” I repeated. “But if our perfume has something to do with it, give me access to that workshop and my nose will find him.”

It wouldn’t. Though it was perhaps the one scent I had not preserved for him, I knew well the smell of death.

Roleplay Response (Prompt 1):
From the window, he watched the woman with an absent interest. No one had been in the shop all day, and he was happy for it, relying on the action outside to stay open. He was aware of the irony. It carried the fragrance of cilantro and the sea. But hustle and bustle was still good advertising, and gourmand perfumes more so. Linden only wondered today if there was something more interesting happening today than the scent of fresh treacle tarts blooming from the shop’s planters of pansy.

They were ignoring her, too, which for the nosy magic folk the street was used to seemed uncharacteristic and strange. As he watched the people pass her, he imagined the bouquet of her name. Was she a Julie, perhaps? Narcissus and birch? A Catherine, made of rose? Was she—?

Oh, on the ground. Alright.

Perhaps a Flora, then. Nice and straightforward.

When he failed to see her pop back up right away, Linden hummed resolution to his alembic, and flicked his wand to put out the burner. The pansies needed to be refreshed anyway.

“Are you well, ma’am?” he called to her from the doorway of the shop, reaching out to spritz the flowers with fragrance from the tip of his wand. “It’s no inn, but you’re welcome to rest up here if you need?”

OTHER
How did you find us? i’m so oooold

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Elsewhere Accepted / Linden Laine