Romance awareness month: Your soulmate's name is written on your wrist.

Bonus points: Western!AU, use of Helena/Septimus

Gobstones Club: Pink Stone - New Adulthood

Extra prompts: accuracy - (object) flashlight; power - (genre) western; technique: (object) suitcase

Helena Ravenclaw opened her eyes to a bright sunny morning in a bright and sunny room. The nets around her four poster bed to keep the insects out were woven from the finest white lace, swaying softly in the summer breeze. Her satin sheets were soft and light, perfect for the typical Western summer.

Ordinarily, Helena Ravenclaw would have smiled on a day like this, thankful for her luxurious lifestyle and eager to find out what gems her papa had hidden for her in the library. Ordinarily, she would have run downstairs to enjoy breakfast with her mother, to ask for her traditional story about her mother's mysterious past before she arrived in their small town.

But today was not an ordinary day.

The bright and sunny room seemed to mock Helena instead of comfort her, and so to spite it she ducked her head under the pillow. Perhaps if she slept the day away, it would cease to even exist.

No such luck.

There was a small tap on the door, followed by the wafting scent of coffee, bacon and fried eggs. Helena emerged from under her pillow to see her maid, Alice, pouring the coffee into a mug.

'Tell me Alice,' Helena said drily, sitting up to lean on one arm. 'What is the point of knocking if you're just going to barge in here anyway?'

'Sorry Miss Helena,' the local girl replied apologetically, setting the tray on Helena's bedside and handing her the mug. 'Your mom said to just walk right in or you wouldn't be up in time.'

Helena sighed. Sometimes she hated her mother for knowing her so well.

'It's easy for her, I suppose,' she said petulantly, adding cream into her drink. 'She was never bargained away like a mule.'

'Yeah, but your pa was,' Alice reminded Helena. 'It's custom for the ranch owner to-'

'Throw a horseshoe and marry the local whose name it lands on,' Helena continued in a bored tone, 'the day they come of age. Yes I know, Alice, but don't you think it's a bit archaic? Besides, in the end papa married my mother and she was a foreigner.'

'It keeps their spirits up though,' Alice stated wisely, pulling the curtains open to let in more light. Helena shied her eyes. 'They accepted you pa marrying your ma, because it was the Lord that decided it. Take this wedding away, and no one even has a chance of going up in life. If only you'd had a brother.'

The young woman sighed dreamily as she laid out Helena's clothes for the day on the chair.

'And what about me, did anyone stop to think that I might be going *down in life?' Helena pouted, glaring at her maid.

Alice was unfazed.

'Sure'nuff, Miss Helena,' she gave the curtains one last tug. 'But I have faith that you'll survive.'

Helena had the the strangest feeling that Alice was mocking her.

Septimus Rosier jumped off his horse and unbuckled the suitcase behind it, shading his eyes as he surveyed the town. It wasn't a bad sort of town - surprisingly clean, in fact, but that might have been due to the unwanted dust baths the wind liked to give it from time to time.

He had passed by a mansion with dozens of horses in the paddock, and assumed that it was supposed to belong to the local rich folk. There were always the rich locals. Septimus would know - he had been one of them. Alas, it was the eldest child who inherited the ranch, and Septimus - as his unoriginal name would suggest - was the youngest of seven. His father had been good about it, paying for whichever career he decided to try his hand at, but Septimus couldn't shake the need to stand on his own two feet.

So he had found himself here, in the backwaters - so to speak - of the desert, where superstition roamed like bandits on the highway. Septimus would know - he had met several on the road.

Tying his horse's reigns loosely to a post, Septimus headed into the saloon, where he would most probably find out where he could board for the duration of his stay.

'Howdy,' the bartender greeted as he sat down. 'What can I get ya?'

'Whiskey,' Septimus grunted. He knew how to work these folk.

'Here y'are.' A drink slid down the bar to meet Septimus's open hand. 'What brings ya 'round these parts?'

'Business,' Septimus said simply, drinking his whiskey and motioning for more.

After his third glass, a group of locals entered the bar, sitting not far from his stool.

'Can ya believe it?' one asked. 'They's given us a new sheriff. An unelected one.'

'I was told he was only here to clear out the bandits,' another replied, frowning.

'I thought it was 'cause his daddy's a big cheese,' the third gave the others a meaningful look.

'I thought it was 'cause he said he'd kill the city-slickers if they din't give him a job.'

'I thought -'

'And I thought it was because no one from this town wanted the job,' Septimus interjected, drawing his stool closer to their table.

'And who're you, then?'

'I'm the new sheriff.'

Septimus cursed as he entered the third basement of the day. When news had spread, half of the townsfolk had greeted him before the sheriff's quarters, and the other half had invented disasters he was obliged to make sure weren't true.

He knew that one had to grease a few palms as they worked their way up, but he didn't think it was this bad. It was his first job, and he had the niggling feeling that he was being played for a fool. So much for being suave, though at least no one was openly hostile. In fact, it seemed like more of a game to them.

He clicked off his flashlight, wiping away a few cobwebs, before emerging back into the house.

'So? D'you find anything?'

A family of four were standing huddled around the doorway, preventing him from exiting the basement. They had believed that a ghost was haunting it, since the floorboards creaked in the night. Septimus had tried to explain that the floorboards also creaked in the day - they just went unheard with all of the noise outside - but they weren't having it.

'Yes,' he replied, as gravely as he could. 'There was indeed a ghost's nest. But I placed the cross of Christ in the centre of the essence of their leader, and they will bother you no longer. The floorboards will creak, but it is a result of past events.'

'Oh, praise the Lord, thank you,' the mother said, making the sign of the cross. 'It would have been a bad omen, ghosts in the town just as it's Miss Helena's eighteenth birthday.'

'Who's Miss Helena?' Septimus asked curiously. All around, the town had bustled with activity, but the gossip drew to a close whenever he drew near.

'Why, she's Mr Ravenclaw's daughter,' the father said, surprised at Septimus's ignorance. 'Today is the day she's engaged to be married!'

'Who's the lucky groom?' the young sheriff asked.

'We don't know yet,' one of the daughters piped up from behind her mother's skirts. 'She hasn't thrown the blessed horseshoe yet!'

Septimus frowned, wondering whether he had heard right.

'The blessed horseshoe?'

Helena Ravenclaw held her head high as she walked through the crowd of people sending flowers her way. Her mother said she ought to feel flattered that the townfolk looked up to her, but to Helena - who had been declared "the most beautiful woman in the West - from the moment she had turned three - it was simply the way of life.

She would much rather have been reading books in the library with her father. If she were to marry, she would want to get something out of it. Instead, she would probably end up with an illiterate husband with three missing teeth, who spent all of his time in the saloon.

A smile graced her face for the first time that day. *Spending all of my time away from my husband to be wouldn't be too bad actually, she thought.

As she reached the pen that had been cleaned precisely for this purpose. Each post had the name of every eligible bachelor from the entire town and a five mile radius. Seizing the half-circle with her left hand, Helena faltered.

'Please, Lord,' she whispered. 'If I am to have any chance at happiness in this life, let this horseshoe fly and keep flying. None of these can be my soulmate, I know it.'

She glanced nervously at the forge, where a metal band was ready to be heated with the corresponding name. Once the horseshoe landed, her wrist would be branded with the name of her husband, as had her father's before her, and her grandmother's before him, and all of her ancestors since time began - if one believed the local legend.

'Please,' she prayed, giving the shoe a gentle kiss.

Alice tied the powder blue scarf around Helena's eyes, obscuring everything from view. The cloth was oddly soft, considering the young woman thought it akin to a noose. Her maid turned her once, twice, thrice, and Helena held her arm out, letting fly the horseshoe on the third turn.

Quickly, she tore off the blindfold, eager to see where the shoe landed, and yet hoping for it never to land at all.

'Ouch!' Septimus cried.

As if his day hadn't been trying enough. Now, as he was on his way to see the spectacle that was Miss Helena's betrothal, a large metal object made contact with his forehead, knocking him to the ground.

He blinked, stars spinning around his head as he groaned. His vision went black, but only for a moment, and as he opened his eyes again he was met with the sight of an angel.

'Are you alright?' she asked, her accent too clipped, too proper to be one of the townsmen.

A smooth white hand reached for his, helping him into a sitting position.

'I- I'm not sure. Am I in heaven?' he asked, dazedly.

'You must be, because that is the only place where miracles are granted,' she quipped, her laughter musical in nature, wholeheartedly joyful. 'What is your name, mystery man?'

'Septimus,' he replied. 'Septimus Rosier. I'm the new sheriff.'

'Septimus,' she repeated, dragging out his name as though tasting it upon her lips. 'Tell me Septimus, do you know how to read?'

'"To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark",' he quoted in return.*

'Then it is settled. George, if you would.' The mystery woman held out an arm, lifting the sleeve of blue silk to expose more of that milky white skin.

Septimus twisted around, sitting up properly, only to see that the whole town was looking down upon him. A hiss of pain cut into his confusion, and he turned back to see the book-lover clutching at her arm in agony.

'Hold out yer arm then, sheriff,' a man holding a pair of tongs said impatiently.

'Wh-'

Septimus barely had the time to utter a syllable of bewilderment, before the small child from the family he had talked to earlier held out his arm, ripping his sleeve down with surprising force. A few seconds later, his wrist burned white-hot and he felt his eyes tearing up.

As he opened his mouth to ask the meaning of this ritual, his words died upon his lips. For branded into his skin in flaming red was one word.

"Helena"

Quote by Victor Hugo, French author and poet.