In the night, My fox waits for me,

Disheveled, himself.

Finding peace in the spaces we meet.

Bury me in the garden

Lay me where I am loved.

Ben Nevis Tavern, at the foot of Ben Nevis ; location when ; Sometime in August, 2023 who ; @Archer Duncan xxxxxxxx

wearing ; rugby sweatpants, a brown long-sleeved skivvy with floral patches, and gumboots. mentioning ; @no one else noting ; Thank you for plotting, and let me know if you need any changes! I kept the date somewhat ambiguous, in case you had any ideas.

Real food, Real Ale Ben Nevis Inn, long and tall in shape, and steadfast for the 200-something years that it had stood. It was originally a cow barn, and if you stayed long enough, the smell of grass and cow dung still lingered in the wooden floor, no matter how strong or often you placed floor cleaner on it. Now they had decorated the place with landscapes of Ben Nevis and the surrounding highlands, with fairy lights draped along the ceiling. Sadie had often wondered how many animals they could have fit here, cramped like a chicken pen or a jail, as she gazed at the iron bars fitted to the window, an original fixture before the glass. As Sadie slid her soggy chip to the side, the slathering of beef gravy reduced any crisp to a wet glob of mush; she had many doubts about whether this food was real at all. Her chips when fresh had been simply satisfactory, as chips would when the chef is too busy arguing with her father over the cost of labour of reinstalling fence posts, the distinctive and all too common hubbub of gruff highland accents and the crashing of pots, the odd side glance of a tourist far too out of depth for the intricate barginings and town dynamics that Glen Nevis and it's surround areas held. ' Yer taking the absolute piss out of me, Ewan and I made ye wee bairn lunch too.' It was hardly a lunch; chips were not lunch food. They were a side, matched with peas and carrots, perhaps steak if a cow got far too old for them to reasonably keep. Most of the time, it came with chicken; she didn't particularly like chicken, but she also felt too impartial to maintain a strong opinion on when her mother plated it. Sadie looked at her father's cellphone with discontent. The spotty reception made her YouTube video more like a picture show than anything it was supposed to be.' The pub wifi was only distributed to paying customers.' The bartender and the owner's wife, Eve, had said to her firmly as she filled Sadie's glass with another helping of lemonade. Despite her pang of annoyance, Sadie's stare had remained blank. Eve and the chef Rowan were always terse with her now, a plump couple whose hair had both salted with age, expressions now wind-weathered from living at the bottom of Ben Nevis. Originally, Eve had doted upon young Sadie, ' strong and stocky, as a highlander should.' She had whispered to her mother once before the child's growth spurt, ' built like a rugby player, that one.' Rowan had helpfully mentioned, earning a chuckle around the table and a slap from Eve. Now, as they grew older and the harsh lines of living in a rural town had taken its toll on their attitudes, they no longer had the patience for a child, especially one whose father had decided no longer to give discounts to locals for his spare handywork. Everyone had felt the chill of the rising prices, and Foxes were no exception from it, reducing their farm hands every year. With a large hurumph, she stood from her table, passing her measly slop of potato one last side glance before swinging her legs over the wooden bar stool, the sole of her boots slightly nicking the wood. A guilty look upwards towards the bar, and the sigh of relief when Eve had not heard nor seen the display meant Sadie was safe another day from a verbal bollocking, and her hurried gait towards the exit meant she had no intentions of giving Eve the opportunity. ------ Rake in hand, a sleight of hand from the shed behind, long limbs twisted it in the air before slashing downwards, just barely missing the gorse bush at the end of the fence line towards the entrance gate of the Inn. Sadies long skivvy and sweatpants were now a plate of golden armour, shimmering in the sun with detailed engraved roses along its breast plate and legs, her hair was tied for good measure, adventure held no remorse to those who left their hair unruly and Sadie had learnt many a lesson and a wholloping to the head with a hair brush over her curls and it's inhabitants of twigs and leaves. Begone the evil of tax, and all those that are beset on the rise of it!! Sadie held no regard for the weight of her words, but it had often left the mouths of the adults around her, and she, the vanquisher of evil and all things that plagued the village, knew better than to ask questions she would not understand the answers to and far rathered the annihilation part anyway. I am Sadie Fox of Glen Nevis, hand of the goddess and a lioness rampant! As she spun on her heels, her arms outstretched, biceps flexing as she raised the rake high above her head before striking the centre of the gorse bush, leaves and thorns quivering before springing at her and the grass around her. Instinctively, she raised her hands to her face, eyelids squeezed shut as the now forgotten rake fell onto the earth in front of her with a dull thud. Her palms and fingers now stretched to guard her from the aftermath of her own folly; the occasional thorn hit her cheek, but she had managed to shield most of the explosion with her hands. Argh! It has taken its first strike, and I am now blinded!

⎯⎯⎯⎯ Stamina: 5 ✧ Evasion: 6 ✧ Strength: 4 ✧ Wisdom: 8 ✧ Power: 7 ✧ Accuracy: 5 ⎯⎯⎯⎯

speaking ; thinking infp ; muggleborn first year ; Gryffindor xxxxxxxx

I hope to see the moon shine upon my face once more so you can remember, the fox

Real food, Real Ale.

That was a promise that did nothing to draw Archer’s attention. Having not yet discovered the wondrous tortures of alcohol, nor particularly brimming with an appetite, both offers fell flat on blind eyes. Travel by coach had always left Archer in little mood for any food, and despite the traditional ointments applied to his neck or the back of his head, nothing worked against the inevitable queasiness that snuck up to his stomach, and seized his veins until he felt dizzy even standing still on his own two feet. It was a fine assumption that he was in no condition to eat, even after his mother’s insistence that he get a bite of mash or peas. He declined with politeness after taking his first glance at the meal of the man on his right, disgusted being an understatement. He would rather have the sandwich she had packed, he informed her, but in truth did not reach for the wrapped meal in the carriage.

Instead, Archer found himself hopping off from the stool he had found perch on, feet touching the ground as he wasted his effort of climbing up onto it from his short height. He wondered when he would grow tall, when the curves of his cheeks would even into angular edges. He wondered when he would have the same sylphlike fingers of his mother, the ones that danced over the piano as if it was no feat. Standing at a mere five foot, although he was already taller than his peers, he still felt like a smudge of existence against a world of higher figures — faces he had to crane his neck to talk to to tete-a-tete. How he, as any other naive child, wished to grow up and see the world head on.

And so as Archer walked out of the bar, sparing no glance back at the beer-scented enclosure, he hummed a small tune to himself, his own rendition of his mother’s favourite, King and Lionheart, holding the small spark of a song close to his heart. He kicked a pebble along down the road as he walked, feet moving to the rhythm of the beats between his lips. His small hands clutched his notebook and pen. Soon he would need a new one as this was filled to the brim, at his final pages and on its final legs.

The quiet corner at the back of in the inn, was, in fact, not a quiet one at all. Not only did it smell like dog piss from irresponsible owners (Archer fondly recalled his own hound, Scout, with hint of pining), but it was also already occupied by another figure. From a distance, he could barely make her out, in the fog of early morning, just a rake and a few shouts evident in the haze. As he neared, a slash of the tool, repurposed as a weapon cut through the air, and he, instinctively, retreated.

When he finally braced himself and neared her, he discovered her to be a girl, perhaps a year or two younger than her, though stocky for her age, and not much shorter than Archer himself. Her build was strong, and in the golden gleam of the flashes of sunlight she looked to be a warrior in her armour of boots and casual trousers. Archer feared that, when her eyes would inevitably fall on him, she would point her great sword his way, and it would be a fight where he could not beat her strength.

For now, in the safety of his position, he observed. She was a wild girl of the Scottish lands, a bird nests’ of ginger hair tied up in the crooked mimicry of a ponytail. Her voice came out rugged, as if she had seen the sights of the wilderness, and fought great beasts. As Archer stared, wide eyed, he was reminded of the tales his mother told him of her childhood, and all the things she never got to do. She was land of stories and a world of mythologies personified into one, singular dot of red in the fog.

“I am Sadie Fox of Glen Nevis, hand of the goddess and a lioness rampant!”

Archer mused wordlessly at the name and the titles she had bestowed upon herself. A small smile crossed its way across his lips, and he could not help but be drawn towards the lioness, with her mane of hair and roaring personality.

Finally, as the warrior was hindered with the spray of thorns upon her, he mustered words and the courage to approach. “You mad or something, Sadie Fox?” He murmured quietly, half-hoping the comment would go unheard in the mist.

He cleared his throat, and tried again, “Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with being mad, I assure you.”

@Sadie Fox | banner by Adeline Spinks