This is to The_vulture‘s prompt “Othel,” and it’s a little weird. As I looked at the rune Othel, I thought of a story, coming up and down over generations. It didn’t end up quite like what I’d first pictured, but it helps if you think of this story as 6 lines, with two junctures (there should have been four, as I look at it, but the shorter junctures are the top and middle points); the story starts at bottom left and follows the rune around to the bottom right.

Learning Memories
The farmhouse where her grandfather had been born, where her mother had grown up, was bustling with family and rocking with laughter. Feather was in the midst of it, sitting on her grandmother’s lap, listening to her uncle’s stories, “…and then the damn cow walked, backwards, all the way out.”

Inheriting a Place
Feather held her grandmother’s glass bluebird. Not a lap, not a hug, or a story. But grandma had loved it, and she could hold it.

Making Memories, I
The bluebird sat in Feather’s dorm window, the room full of laughter and friends. “…and then the damn cow backed right out of the barn. My uncle never could live that down.” She leaned against Jerome’s shoulder, basking in the warmth of her friends. “And then there was that time…”

Making Memories, II
The bluebird turned a blind eye as they came home, muddy, soaking wet, and laughing. “I can’t believe you pulled me out.”

“What was I going to do, let you drown? Here, let me get that.” Jerome pulled her sweater off, wrapping a towel around her shoulders, pressing her close.

Making a Place
“…in sickness and in health …” The dress was blue, echoing her grandmother’s; the bands just like his parents’.

“With this ring, I thee wed.”

Making Memories, III
They stood high on the side of the mountain, their kids to either side of them, looking over the valley below, the trees a rippling blanket of green spread out at their feet. Her son hugged her, briefly and impulsively. “It’s beautiful,” he exclaimed. “I’m going to remember this forever.”

Making Memories, IV
Feather wore dark blue; she always did, to weddings, and this one was more important than most. She held Jerome’s hand tightly while their daughter said her vows, surrounded by the love of her family and friends. A child whispered “she’s pretty,” and the church, as one, laughed, brightly, happily.

Leaving a Place
She wrapped the bluebird carefully with shaking hands, nesting it in layers of blue tissue paper. Her granddaughter might not understand yet, but she would.

Teaching memories
“And then there was that time up on the mountain,” Feather chuckled, cuddling her granddaughter close on her lap, “when your dad decided to slip-and-slide his way down the last hundred feet. I nearly had a heart attack.” The house rumbled with laughter, full of family and warm with love.

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For pippin‘s prompt.

This is a one-off.

When Ned Wharton lost his wife Amelia to childbirth, he, too beset with grief and too busy with his work to think of courting another woman, made a golem of clay mud and salt tears to serve as a nanny to his infant son and housekeeper for himself. For a heart, he gave her the glass rose he had given Amelia on their first date, and for a brain, he gave her an abacus. For her voice, he installed a music box Amelia had loved.

He named her Adamanta, and, as his son grew to adulthood, she served the family faithfully. She did not age, and did not sleep, but she could pass, for a short time, as human, and many people assumed that Ned had simply remarried on the quiet. The stone woman was entirely faithful to Ned and young Edward Junior, a devoted house-woman and a scrupulous house-cleaner. She neither gossiped nor was the subject of gossip, and was said by many to be a perfect wife.

As young Ed Junior grew up, Ned, who did on occasion notice what was going on under his roof, saw that Adamanta was becoming quieter and more withdrawn, and would often spend time in the old nursery, holding Ed’s outgrown toys. So he created for her a child, a daughter of clay mud and seasoning salts, a tiny teddy bear from Eddie’s childhood for a heart, a flute for a voice and a puzzle toy for a brain. He called her Adora, Adamanta’s daughter, and treated her as he treated his own flesh and blood.

She was a lovely girl who would never age, never grow up, a sweet thing who loved to hug people and would spend hours drawing strange mystical cities. Eddie was mystified by her – but Adamanta and Adora were invited to his wedding, and had a family’s place of honor next to Ned.

As more time passed, Ned resigned himself to the fact that he was aging. His son had children of his own, who were growing more rapidly than seemed possible, while Adamanta and Adora stayed young and fresh and loyal. As the cough set in, one late, damp February, Ned understood that he would not be around for his wife and daughter for much longer.

He built for them a man of mud clay and salt tears, with a diary for a heart, Ned’s very own journal, and a set of clockwork gears for a brain. He did not give the man a voice, for he had never found he needed to speak much at all, but he did give him a stomach of brass and copper. And with his last breath, he gave this husband of mud a name.

Attend.

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