Disclaimer: Jack Sparrow, Harry Potter, and Legolas Greenleaf are not mine, unfortunately. I mean, what yum they are! However, Feodora Turner and the "Twin Titans" Zeke and Zack Turner do belong to me. So does Lady Sanctuary. My pockets are empty, so please don't sue me unless you're really desperate for some dryer lint.
So, without further ado...
Sanctuary
Chapter Two
By: Soulful Gray
Some people think True Sanctuary is a myth, that no one will ever find any sort of peace from sorrow, from war, from scorn, outside of death. Others believe that Sanctuary is only temporary and insubstantial, that when you find it, it only gives you so much before it disappears forever.
No, Sanctuary thought. I am not a myth. I am not something to be had for a brief moment. I am something that, once I offer myself to you, you have no choice but to accept me. But just because you accept me does not mean you will immediately have me, or that nothing bad will ever happen to you from now on. I am only the doorway.
Sanctuary fingered the pendant that hung between her breasts and intently watched the round mirror before her. It was the same exact shape as the pendant, but with twisting vines of silver rather than gold, and a mirror where the gem should have been. It stood on a pedestal of thousands of crystal shards, and if you were to look around, you would see that the whole room was a hollowed out crystal of immense proportions, and some inner, ethereal light made the walls sparkle and glow.
Sanctuary cast her palm over a small pile of shards, and the musical, tinkling sound of crystals striking each other filled the cavern as they started piling on top of each other to form a smooth, crystalline chair. She perched upon it and called forth an image.
"Show me my Promises," she whispered.
The mirror sparkled and in each quarter of the circular surface, a different face appeared. Jack, Legolas, Harry, and Feodora.
She smiled and put all the images together to see how they were getting on in their first meeting.
"Holy mother!" Feodora shrieked, staring at what looked like three dead bodies that occupied the same small clearing she did. She started scrambling towards the closest body to her, Jack, and reached down to check his pulse.
His hand snaked out and grabbed hers, while his other held up his pistol.
"Where's my rum!" he slurred drunkenly before passing out again.
Sanctuary actually giggled at this. He certainly had been an interesting one.
"Oh good lord!" Feo cried, standing and backing up. Sanctuary giggled again. Legolas had awoken and was standing right behind the poor girl. She slammed into his chest and he fell over, having been very light-headed when he started towards her.
Feo spun around and stared at him with a look of horror, and before she moved anywhere, cast an assessing glance at Harry. He was starting to sit up, rubbing his eyes tiredly.
Sanctuary felt a giant tug at her heartstrings when she thought about him in particular. She just wanted to pick him up and mother him for the rest of his life and beyond. She sighed and prayed for him the hardest of all; now that she had opened the doorway, he was on his own with only the other three to help.
She looked at Feo again and smiled. She, too, had faced tragedy like the others, but Sanctuary had not offered herself to the young woman. In fact, if things went well, she would not have to; the other three were supposed to help her on her way to happiness. They might even help others.
Smiling, she watched on.
"Are you okay?" Feo asked of Harry, moving towards him cautiously. "Your friends seem to be a little worse for wear."
"Who're you?" he asked slowly, trying to lift himself off the ground.
"Apparently a crazed lunatic who's had hallucinations brought on to her by her maniac nephews, but then again..." She shook her head and held her hand out. "I'm Feo."
"Harry," he muttered, grudgingly taking her hand to let her help him up.
Sanctuary frowned as Feo made reference to her nephews. She'd casually glanced over them when she'd brought Feo to the clearing, so now she decided to make amends.
The twin boys popped up and landed on top of Legolas, who had been trying to get up again.
"Oops," Sanctuary said on a giggle. No matter the seriousness of the situation, she still couldn't help having a bit of a mischievous side.
Legolas cursed in Elvish, and Zeke and Zack scrambled to their feet and looked around wildly. They spotted Feo at the same time she spotted them.
"Aunt Feo!" they shouted in unison.
"Can ye' stop yer yellin'?" Jack asked from his spot on the ground, holding his head. "Bloody whelps!"
Sanctuary outright laughed as Feo's green eyes widened and darkened as she left Harry's side and marched over to the twins. They blanched in fear and then suddenly screamed as Jack produced his pistol again and started waving it around drunkenly. They hid behind Feo right before she could smack them over their stubborn brown heads, and then she pushed them behind a tree as a shot went off.
"Freakin' maniac!" she shouted and kicked the pistol out of Jack's hand. He just kind of giggled and grabbed her foot.
"Ah, a pretty lass ye' are!" he laughed, feeling up the leg that showed from her capris. A twitch developed under her eye as she tugged her foot out of his hand. Jack seemed to think this was hilarious as hell and let out a full belly laugh until he glanced over at Legolas.
"Will? What did ye' do t'yer 'air?" he slurred and lurched to his feet. Feo jumped back and squeaked as she tripped over Legolas again, who caught her. He seemed to be much steadier on his feet now and he set her on her feet. His face was one of pure calm, even though suspicion clouded his eyes. He said something in Elvish again, and Feo's look of blank confusion was precious.
Sanctuary, for all her good intentions, was reduced to tears of mirth. (AN: Oiy, she's easily amused, isn't she?)
"Oiy, whelp. I asked ye' a question!" Jack slurred. Feo stumbled back from Legolas and the tipsy pirate, her eyes round like dinner plates. She grabbed Harry and put him behind her in a protective manner, as though to shield him from both grown men.
"Aunt Feo?" came a stuttering voice.
"What, Zeke?" She could tell by said stutter who it was. Under duress, Zeke could be quite timid.
"What's going on!" Zack snapped, ever the loud one.
Oh, didn't she wish she knew.
Feo's House
She glanced behind her one last time to confirm that, yes, there was an Elf, a pirate, and a boy wizard walking behind her. The Twin Titans brought up the rear, Zack with his eyes hooded behind overgrown brown curls, and Zeke looking just a tad bit shame-faced. Sighing, she opened a small hinged pad and punched in the entry code to the large ivy-covered stone and metal gate they stood at. A small electric whir could be heard as the machine worked to open the iron bars of the gate.
"Oiy, ye've quite the place, lass," Jack said as her place was revealed to them.
Yeah, well, that was an understatement.
Five stories and five separate wings of solid brick made up the manor Feo lived in. She eyed it dispassionately. Right now they could only see the front and the East and West Wings, which only held two stories. The other three were in back and visible by their height. She could picture the view from the top with ease. It looked like a leaf, or a compass rose missing the South-Eastern and -Western points. Right now they stood in front of the southern point, where the front door and a huge foyer would greet them. She glanced at the top of the point, where a taller tower and turret stood. Smaller, equally sized towers stood on the end of each of the five other wings. It was practically a freakin' castle.
The lawn was a huge garden of rock and moss and water in which the flat stone drive circled around and straight through; that way, her uncle would have said, they can enjoy a scenic, wavy short-cut or be boring pricks who have to make a show of things and go the long way.
"And 'ow did a gaunt lass like yerself land here?" Feo glanced back at Jack as she led them along the cut through the watery garden.
"My great uncle left it to me when he passed away."
"Ye' must have put on a great show t'get in his good graces, eh?"
She snorted. "Must have." They made it to the front door, finally, and she unlocked and swung open the heavy, steel-enforced double doors.
Feo led them inside, weariness settling on her shoulders like a cloak the moment she stepped into the foyer. She stared at the inviting decor of the foyer. Everything was symmetrical. Two marble fire places were parallel to each other; even unlit they looked as though cheery flames burned in their hearths. The flooring was white marble that was warm to bare feet, even in winter; it should have looked cold and uninviting, but it was quite the opposite. Four paintings, one on each side of a fire place, depicted a woman on each, decorated to a color of the season with the seasonal weather surrounding them. Other, whimsical tapestries hung on the walls, and a lone chandelier hung from a ceiling painted with light patterns of vines and leaves. Along the walls stood comfortable, over-stuffed couches and chairs, for weary guests, and the only light in the room was blue from being filtered through the huge stained-glass window above the doors, the picture of a white dragon arching over an ocean, twining around a sparrow; on the ocean, in the far corner to what looked like the west, was a shore of gray sands.
"Uncle Thedric went all-out," she muttered, letting them precede her into the open archway on the far end of the foyer. It lead into a rounded chamber that had five open archways within equal distances between them The one to her left led into the dining room, and stairs to the immediate right inside led up to the kitchens. To her right, the archway led into the offices, with stairs on the left that climbed into a huge library.
The one straight across from her had stairs going up a huge stain-glassed window smaller than the one in the foyer, but with the same picture. Doors opened up along it leading to each upper floor, and small oak doors were on either side of the base of the stair that opened into the family- and living-room. The other two wings were complete mirrors of each other, with bedrooms and the like in equal numbers and stairs to the left and right that led to the other floors.
She glanced up at the ceiling, which was divided in six sections, and had that the same dragon pattern in each section.
"Bit overdone, don't ye' think?" Jack asked, fingering a crystal candelabra that sat just inside the archway they had passed through.
"Maybe, but that was Uncle Thedric for you." She glanced at the white marble under her feet. "Filthy rich and nothing to do with his money but build this hunk of marble he called his 'humble abode'."
Legolas stared at everything silently. They'd figured out at the clearing that it was useless for him to try and speak to them. It seemed like they spoke the common-tongue, but it was a very crude version, and he could only catch bits of it, certain words. The one called Jack, the drunken fellow who dressed in rags, spoke in a slurred tongue, and his speech was especially hard to decipher. The young boy, Harry, barely spoke at all, but his tongue was clear enough, so he caught a little more from him. Feo spoke evenly, although she constantly muttered, but with her there was none of the accent present in Jack and Harry. And the twin boys... Their tongues were silent under the hard green stare of Feo, whom he had gathered was their aunt.
He turned his head, hearing the quiet beating of wings that was the snowy white owl that had followed them. Female and beautiful, it landed on young Harry's shoulder and met his gaze.
"Hedwig," Harry said softly, stroking her breast-feathers absently, not really looking at anything.
Legolas could only guess that was the bird's name. He looked up at the giant glass ceiling, and could only silently appreciate whomever it was that had artfully designed and built the structure he stood in.
"Let's go into the living room," Feo suggested, leading them to the archway across from them, to the door on the right of the stair case.
The floor was lushly carpeted in gray, and the room furnished in cool shades, and many windows opened into it making it light, airy, and welcoming, like the rest of the house. Many couches and chairs were there, and end tables of white oak separated them. Feo gestured to the couches and chairs.
"Have a seat. I'm going to fix myself a drink." A strong one, she thought.
"Fix me on too, luv," Jack said, grinning. "Rum if ye 'ave it." She gave him a dirty look as she walked to the mini bar in a corner of the room.
"Well 'ell, it wouldn't 'urt, would it?"
"Watch your mouth, asshole!" All but Feo and the twins jumped and turned to the scratchy, squawky voice that had spoken.
In the opposite corner of the bar, Legolas, Jack, and Harry spotted the source of the voice. On a tall perch, looking for all the world like a king in the bright beam of sunlight he sat in, was a huge blue parrot, staring at them with one beady black eye turned to them.
"Pardon?" Jack asked, stepping towards it.
"You ain't got none to pardon!" The bird "braaached" and brought up a foot to scratch under its chin. Then it set the foot back down and started scooting from one side of the bar to the other, turning in circles at each end. "Did you wipe your ass with those clothes, ugly?"
"Now, ye' don't 'ave to be insulting 'im," Jack said, angling his head towards Legolas.
"Hardy-har, me hearty!" the parrot squawked snidely. "Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!"
Jack cackled and Legolas barely contained a wince at the sound.
"I like this bird!" he laughed.
"And I don't like you! I ain't no bird! I'm a gangsta, yo!" The bird started puttering out machine gun sounds and busting out random rhymes from rap songs, stepping up and down and bouncing to some non-existent rhythm.
"Zack," Feo, said from the corner where she was sipping a small shot of whiskey.
Zack reached into something behind a couch and picked up a big white ball. With practiced ease, he threw it, not very hard, at the untalented, rapping fowl. Squawking, the bird started flapping around the room, and anyone not used to it was following its path with wide eyes. Finally, it landed on the floor, on the ball and started rolling it along.
"Rolling! Rolling! Rolling on the river!" it crowed until Zack stepped out and kicked the ball.
"Dumb bird," Feo muttered as the bird sailing across the room, caught itself mid-air and flew back to its perch. There, it stayed silent for a moment, eyeing the closest guest to it, Legolas.
"So, blondie. How 'bout a piece of that ass for Uncle Tuscany!" Legolas didn't understand a word it said, but got the feeling it wasn't something he wanted to understand.
"Ignore him," Feo said, motioning them over to the chairs, leaving behind her glass. "Tusc loves annoying people." Tuscany cawed once and remained silent for a few minutes as they sat down.
Feo immediately went for her favorite chair that sat in a warm beam of sunlight and pulled her feet up under herself as she sat there. The twins claimed a loveseat, tense as they waited for someone to dismiss them. Legolas opted to stand off to one side, not sure whether he was comfortable to sit anywhere even though the chairs did look exquisitely comfortable.
"Well, I don't lack for room," Feo said unnecessarily, "So I guess you three might as well stay here." She looked at Harry. His small display of magic through his wand, and the broom he carried were all she'd needed to know he was a wizard. Then to Legolas. He was so... perfect, with some strange inner light that only made his perfection and his Elvish manner stand out more. She looked a Jack. Well... She supposed he did act like a pirate, so she guessed that was proof enough on his part.
"Whatever it is that brought you all here will probably send you back sometime. So I guess we should wait." Feo looked a framed picture on the end table next to her. "I should warn you. Two other people live here, but they're on vacation. Macie and her boyfriend, Jake. You'll meet them later." She looked at Legolas and gave him a somewhat helpless look. "I'm really sorry you can't understand me." He understood her meaning, however, and nodded.
"I should probably warn you about Franklin and the others then-" she was interrupted by a loud crashing noise and they all jumped as the door slammed open. Legolas was without his bow, but he reached for the blade at the belt of his tunic and prepared to throw it at a..
Pig?
Yes, there, barreling across the floor, was a fat pink pig wearing a collar with glittering diamonds on it, squealing and grunting as it waddled its hairy self towards Feo.
"Franklin," she muttered, pointing at the grunting swine. It's grunts were loud and abrupt and his front end would raise up a bit to punctuate each sound. It even sounded like it was growling.
"He thinks he's a dog," Zeke said lowly.
"And unfortunately, we aren't allowed to cut him up and fry him to prove to him he's not," Feo said.
"You 'ave a pet pig?" Jack said incredulously, looking torn between laughter and general bewilderment.
"Among other things," she said dryly and motioned to a door at the back of the room, one that didn't stand out over much. "Take a look outside, and you might pray to the powers that be that you'd not come here."
Jack, being the... brave soul he was, ventured to the door and opened it. His eyes widened as what looked like a walking pin-cushion ambled inside and he dare not push it aside with his booted foot for fear of the needles on its back puncturing the leather.
"Meatball," Zack said, holding out his hand. The porcupine ambled up to him and allowed herself to be carefully picked up and placed in a lap to be scratched under her soft chin.
A fluffy gray squirrel darted into the room, chattering madly as it was chased by a black-banded cat that was scarred enough to look like a grizzled old man.
"Posh and Tubz." The squirrel, Posh, dove behind Zeke and crawled under his shirt to escape her death at the clawless paws of Tubz.
A long gray head, followed by another, shoved past the confused Jack and peered into the house.
"Samson and Delilah." Ostriches. They made a couple of weird sounds before pulling out their heads and backing from the door to continue enjoying being outside in the fading daylight.
"And out in the stables, you'll find a couple of bob-cats, two zebras, a donkey, and three horses." Feo cast a dry look about, and they got the distinct feeling she wasn't thrilled to have so many animals, but she didn't seem to mind either. "Maybe later you'll meet the deer and Crouton, the wolf."
"Where did all these things come from!" Harry exclaimed, eyes wide behind his glasses.
"My inheritance from a crazy old man whom I suspect is not dead and has this house under surveillance just so he can get a few laughs out of me." Feo leaned her head against the back of the chair for a moment and cringed as Tuscany the parrot began making pig noises at Franklin, who squealed in anger and tried jumping up at the perch, not doing a very good job of it. "This is home," she said, massaging her temples.
Harry leaned over and looked at Tubz, who had come to rub up against his leg, abandoning his chase for some quality petting time. For some reason, the cat reminded him of Crookshanks, even though they bore absolutely no resemblance to one another, and he began petting the scarred tom.
Jack closed the door, blinked and then turned back to the rest of the room.
"That's very interesting," he said, fingering one of his twin braids on his chin. "I could use some rum."
"I'll show you to your rooms first," Feo said quickly, getting to her feet and ushering them to the door they'd entered through. She pushed them up the stairs just outside the door and they stopped a the first door, which opened into a long hallway of doors.
"Each room had a bathroom and a small sitting room," she explained. She opened up the first one, then a second a ways down from that, and a third near the end. "Your pick."
None of them were particular, but Legolas went for the first, understanding that much of her strange language, claiming the room closest to the stair out of instinct, in case of an attack. Jack took the next, and Harry the last. But before they walked in, they looked at Feo.
She pinched herself slightly on the arm to make sure this was real and then smiled wanly. "Dinner in a bit. Then we've got to get you all some clothes."
"'Ey, what's wrong with mine?" Jack asked.
"I hate to agree with Tuscany... But something about wiping things with your clothes does come to mind." She offered what should have been an apologetic smile, but came out as a faint twisting of her lips. "I'll lend you some of Jake's things until then. Harry, you're fine for now." She gave a little wave and turned away to walk down the stairs.
So what do you think? Do you like it? Do you hate it? I don't know. I think I went into a little too much detail on the manor, but I couldn't resist the chance to make the place look exactly like I wanted it to. Yeah, did you expect Feo to be somewhat hard-off financially? I hope so. Anyway, Please Review!
Gray