Marriage is Murder

Brant looked up as he haerd a voice and smiled seeing Dottie enter the lab " well if you tell me waht you need maybe we can work togther in making the potion for you" he said hoping to learn from her about old elven magic to add to his jurnal. " um.. if its okay with you and I didn't offent you in any way" he said and rubbed hte back of his neck nervusly as he spoke to her he was not acustomed to being with house elves to didn't quiet know what he should say or do. He movd to the couldren and motioned to it " um...go ahead I'll be at the desk, over there" he said softly.

"I already see what I need," she told him, "but you must learn the potion in your mind. We do not write our potions or spells. Ever. Not the old ones." She made a flicking motion with her fingers to close his book.

She motioned the cauldron off the hook, being much too small to reach it without magic. She motioned some ingredient bottles off the shelves and put some water in the cauldron. She worked much more slowly than she normally would so that he could see her selection of ingredients and how much she used of each one. When the ingredients came together, the potion looked little more like chopped leaves with a few pieces of wood shavings and some crushed rocks, all floating in the water.

She drew her wand and added an incantation in the old Elvin tongue. The water swirled and bubbled and changed color to a sparkling, glowing emerald green. She smiled. It was finished. She poured it into a couple of smaller potions bottles.

"Come and watch," she motioned to him. She walked the short distance to the living room, to a flower vase with some of the wilting cut flowers. She opened the new potions bottle and put one drop of the potion in the center of each cut flower. The flower turned back to its original vibrant color, straightened and freshened itself, and then the color deepened to a much brighter hue and the fragrance of each flower was a bit enhanced.

"It rejuvenates, but only for a short time," Dottie told him. "It does not work more than once on any flower but it can double the life of a cut flower. Your lady of the house might find it to be pleasant. The master seems to put many flowers around her."

Brant listened and watched as his bok closed and he moved back to Dottie and watched making note of what she did inhis mind best he could " damn I forgot the last ingrediant" he said and thought back over what she ahd done " no..no I got it" he said smiling " better than a book" he said and moved with her out to the vase with the wilting flowers " now thats a good thing" he said and watched as the flowers rose as if fresh again. He reatched out and touched them smiling as he felt nothin but the soft petals against his fingers. " I have a lot to learn from you Dottie" he said and smiled as he looked at her " will you teach me?" he asked .

"You will need to learn the old tongue," she said. "Humans do not use it. They seem to have trouble with it. But if you are willing to try, we can see if you can learn to speak it. The old ways do not work without the old elvin tongue. This is just a little bit of a flower water that keeps from having to kill such lovely blooms so often. Some of the very old ones spoke of a flower water that kept blooms alive for years, but that was lot at least a century ago--or so we were taught. For us, some of these little bits of magic didn't seem to be so important during the Wizarding Wars. We lost some of our old ways when Voldemort killed so many of our people in the wars."

"You'll bore him with the history lessons, Dottie," Suki said, coming in and setting some feather dusters to dust the furniture and some brooms to sweep. "Remember the goblins said history bores humans."

"Not all of them," Dottie said. "There are a few who like to learn. This one wants to write everything down."

"Why would they write it down?" Suki asked, only familiar with the most important things being taught by doing or by remembering it. She looked at Brant. "Are your minds fragile?"

Brant listened intently at Dottie his eyes like fire as he listened to her " I want to learn" he said " I have gone from one end of the world to the other and yet I still feel like I have not learn" he said to her but looked to the othr elf " historys not boring, not to me I live for the past, learn from it" he said with a smile as he sat on the floor in front of Dottie. He chuckled hearing Suki and shook his head " it is so others once we have gone can read and learn, those who want to of course" he said and sighed " its a dying art though not many want to read like Robert and I do any more" he said sadly.

"But isn't that what talking circles are for?" Suki asked, confused.

"They don't talk," Dottie scowled at her. "Not like our people do. They don't learn like we do. If he wants to try to learn the old ways, then let him try."

"You'll need a scroll."

"Yes, Jobey keeps everything. He'll have one somewhere," Dottie said. She looked at Brant. "There are just a few types of scrolls. One is the elvin tongue alphabet. Some humans have found it helpful to learn the tongue. We don't use them much, so it may take a few days to find one. They're not very common even amongst our kind. I will look for one."

"You are here to work, Dottie, not to teach," Suki said.

"I am here to serve," Dottie said. "The master seems to be different. He may let me." She looked at Brant. "Will he punish?" She had worked for masters who were cruel. The issue of whether their new employer would punish, like some of the others, had not even come up until now. It wouldn't change their minds about serving. It would only, perhaps, change how much they 'snapped' into following their master's every command.

Brant listened and nodded, he had heard of the scrolls and he chuckled when they asked if Robert would punish them if she taught him. " no, he is a kind master he won't punish." he said smiling at her " he like I likes to read and learn new and old things, he says sometimes the old ways are better" he said sitting back on his hand as he looked at her." I agree with his thinking" he said watchin them both " I have been in the crypts of venice, to the pyramids of Egypt and nothing of the old ways have I found." he spoke softly as if part of him was left there each time he found nothing.

"Because you will not find them with the dead abandoned places," Suki said. "The old ways are treasured by those few left who understand them. The old ways are hidden. Never in plain sight. And they always have guardians. If you want to find the old ways, you need to learn them from the guardians.

"But you are not talking about the master. He knows some of the old ways. But the older ones. They guard your old ways. The master of this house--he fights. He guards. But he guards your people, doesn't he? He is...what some might call a warrior.

"The one you speak of--the older man...He is what our people would call an elder--a wise one. He learns. He teaches, and he uses what he learns to help others. Someplace he probably has many scrolls because he seeks more knowledge that his head can hold."

"Suki sees things," Dottie says. "And she notices everything." Dottie knew Suki didn't miss much. Se observed everything in order to please her masters more quickly, and it made her a very good judge of character, or at least Dottie thought so.

Brant sat and listend "Yes I now know they are, Robert, hes an elder if thats what you wish to call him, hes the wisest among us "Brant said " We all learn from him, how to fight, how to servive, some of us how to just live normal lives." he said softly meaning Jack and how he could cope with his were side. Bran sat cross legged now and looked at them. He wanted to know more " so your saying if I want to learn the even ways I should ask Robert to teach me but he can't speak" he said to them nodding to Dottie as she said Suki was very obervant.

"I think he's very wise in human things," Suki said, "but I don't know if he knows elvish ways. He can teach you probably many human things, but I wouldn't learn elvish things from a human. Any more than you could teach a female how to be female. It is probably best to go to the source."

"For now," Dottie said, handing one of the bottles of potion to Brant, "you might see how steady your hand is with the flower water. Careful that you don't use it on magical plants. Just fresh cut flowers. Odd things happen if its used on magical plants."

"Oh, like the carnivorous mandrakes," Suki said casually, sending the brooms and the feather dusters down the hallway. "Dottie, we are to have the house swept and dusted by noon. We need to work."