And we're walking round the edges
You were flaunting all your open wounds
I can't express them better than you

Galenia Ollivander Álvarez - outfit

Things were strange in her life, she would admit that. It wasn't the strangeness most people would thing, it wasn't a series of crazy, inexplicable events. There was just always a sense of pause around her. She's not sure when it started, she was sure that she didn't have the same sensation when she was little. Now, though, things were different. It was as if she were just hovering, floating in space, in a bubble. Out, away in her own little world. In her cabin in the country, with its silence and its thick walls to keep out the cold. She came out only rarely, the world moved on without her and since she was little she'd found it very hard to keep up. Ever since her parents had perished, she seemed to have fallen still. Her time with her grandmother was also strange in its passing. The woman had been old and weak and dying and it filled her days with an air of eternal finality she that she had never quite escaped. Instead she continued in the same way, working in silence, only now she was alone. Any sort of variation in her life was short lived and though she enjoyed change well enough, it was something she wasn't completely comfortable with. She supposed that if there were some way to support herself through such changes, things might be different, but all the adults in her life were dead and as much as she valued and cared for Gal, it wasn't the same. Gal had looked after her, but her formative years had been spent with others. It was other people that had shown her her initial footing. Despite still having her distant cousin, it felt very much like any change she went through would be something she had to do alone. She knew how to be alone, but being thrown off balance while alone was something that could end up very badly. She knew that, so she tried not to. Not too much, at least. Subtlety, time.

In some ways, though, she was trying her best to find some level of change. Some variation. A few steps out of her comfort zone at the time. Like now. She usually had her clients come to her house or corresponded by owl. There were really very few reasons for her to leave the cottage. Even when she wanted to see her family, they tended to come to her house for tea. Today she had decided to go visit the shop. When she was little, she'd seen it a few times, but she didn't remember much of those outings. After the war, after they returned, her parents brought her a few times. Great grandfather had been rather weakened in his old age so there was little reason to come here, in the end. Later on, she found that crowded places like Diagon Alley made her nervous. After she was left with only Galenia and her branch, she'd tried to visit a few more times, but it became very infrequent. Maybe once every few months. So she had decided this afternoon that she wanted to visit and she had gotten up and dressed before she could talk herself out of it. Though she didn't want to push things and decided to aparate directly to the shop. Appearing right inside was impossible, since security had been improved since Garrick's kidnapping, but she landed right on the doorstep. Outside it was still crowded, though since it was a Wednesday it wasn't as loud or overwhelming as it could have been. Still, she didn't want to spend more time than she had to there and she went inside.

There was no one behind the counter, but that was all right. There was always someone in the shop. Even if the manager -not an Ollivander, it was still something of a double take for her to remember each time that someone who wasn't part of the family worked in the shop but she supposed Gal knew best- was not around, her cousin usually was. So she headed to the back room, hoping to not catch Gal sleeping. She knocked on the door politely and waited.

You have buried childish qualities
Friend make sense of me, friend make sense of me
I have many destructive qualities

shirt | coveralls | knife guards | robes

She'd been shaping wands.

Not quite wands for sale-- these were wands that Galenia took longer to make than the usual five days. They had to be flawlessly flawed, of no distinguishing marks, of no similar style to the wandmaking families near Great Britain, crude enough that they didn't look expert-made. In other words, these were the wands Galenia was able to get to Muggle-borns. If they didn't know how they got the wands, they wouldn't be able to say who gave them. She knew it was already difficult in general, but Ollivanders had never cared about bloodlines. The label of pure had not particularly been theirs, especially not the original meaning. Ollivanders crafted wands to bring everyone to the same level of equity, to help children train.

She. . .it was silly, really, though she still felt alone in this. She wasn't, she knew. Gerhardina, Gandolf, her father, and her grandfather helped out as well, but they were all still mourning the loss of Garrick and Gráinne for what they had been. Garrick's loss had been almost more expected, but Gráinne's had not been. Gráinne had been more lethargic after '98, Galenia had known, but she'd worked through it like all Ollivanders did. They had thought it simple age, simple recovery, but it had stayed with Gráinne. Gráinne had died slowly, almost by centimeters, still crafting wands until her hands refused to be dexterous. Everyone had known Gráinne was to be Garrick's successor, and she would lead them and work the shop for another three or so decades. Garrick had spent the last half-century with her under his arm, and Gráinne had trained Galenia as one of her own potential successors. To have lost her so young, at only eighty-four had been a blow. Garrick had taken it the hardest-- he'd stepped down and died within the space of five years after.

He'd picked Galenia to replace him, before her father, her grandfather, her brother, their cousins. She'd known that was a possibility, but she'd always though she'd follow Gráinne, taking up the mantle at seventy or so. Two thousand years of history lay on her shoulders a couple of decades too early, and she needed to protect them, needed to do what was right, to sell wands, and keep a neutral face.

Still, she was paranoid. Ollivanders had been broken into twenty years ago, and if it was not safe, nothing they had was. To overtly discuss what was happening could not be done. She couldn't, then, let Ophelia know about what she was doing, as to do so was to place her in danger, to jeopardize her safety and the shop's safety, for all that she trusted her. Ophelia was out to lunch, that was the only reason why she was working in the middle of the day on these, when it was summer and that meant children were usually in need of wands. Still, it was the lunch hour, which was announced on the door, and people could wait until Ophelia came back.

A knock at the door sent her jerk up from her work. She neatly hid the wands under a tangle of branches, then covered it with
a tray of wands that were actually experimental, pulling on the robes over her outfit as she did so. No matter who it was-- friend, foe, kith, kin, or Death Eater, Ollivanders had a reputation, and she'd be damned to a treeless tundra before she let it crack on her. The window showed it was seemingly Gael-- sweet Gael, who had lost Garrick, Gráinne, and more importantly, her parents so young.

"How did Gráinne Ollivander's work differ from laurel to manchineel?" Sounds were spelled to be muffled, words not so. It was some sort of older spell Galenia had never understood, and truly hoped it wouldn't fail as she led Ollivanders. She had no idea how to renew it.

Gael didn't often leave the house, that was pretty obvious to anyone who spoke to her for more than a few minutes. She didn't know why, anymore. She'd just stopped leaving, at some point, and settled like that. Now she was nervous whenever she had to go to crowded places or talk to too many new people. Even customers, she preferred to meet at home. She knew that most people would advise against that, especially with the people that were now in power and her family's history with them. It wasn't that she was not afraid of them, because she was. She remembered the two years in France, she remembered uncle Garrick's state after everything. She remembered that everything had been horrible and a lot of people had been hurt. Now, people were getting hurt also. Gael was insignificant in all of this, though. She was just a jewelry maker, she didn't even officially work as a wandmaker. She lived in a small cottage in a small town and didn't really talk to anyone but her family. She may have been pureblood, but there was no reason for anyone to suspect her of absolutely anything. As far as she knew, she was relatively safe in this situation.

Was that something to be content with, though? She didn't know. She had met someone new, the other day. Corwin was younger than her, if only by a year or two. She truly didn't remember him from school, but she didn't remember anyone anyway. He had been charming, though, and even as shy as she was she could say that she had enjoyed talking to him. He wasn't pushy, not like a lot of people, and he was a good person. It seemed to her, at least. Very fun loving, very cheeky, but she liked him anyway. He had been pleasant to be around. She wondered wether she would see him again. He had been interesting to speak to, and while he was a Slughorn, he seemed to have more opinions than his family name dictated that he should. At least, so it seemed to Gael. It was hard to read him with all the smiles and the jokes, and she wasn't all that great at reading people in the first place. Still, she had started thinking about the comfort she had in this entire situation. It was a privilege, wasn't it? Being able to keep working, staying comfortable and safe in her own home. No one would come to hurt her, not like they'd gone out to hurt so many others. She read the newspaper even though she didn't really trust anything they said. The editor was a Death Eater and she was only slightly worse than the extremist before her. She thought there really ought to be something she could do to help people, but she wasn't a particularly skilled person. She couldn't fight and she didn't really have any social skills to speak of.

Going to visit her cousin would help, she thought, because Gal always did help her get her head on straight. Every since her family had died and she'd been left alone, her cousin had taken some care of her. Of course, she wasn't completely helpless, she could take care of herself. But company and friendship had gone a long way. Gal was her family too, all the Ollivanders were, and while they humoured her self imposed isolation, they also very much did support and love her. She very much appreciated that. She didn't really know what would have become of her without them. Maybe she would have eight cats already. It wasn't a completely horrible prospect, but the loneliness that it pointed at wasn't at all a pleasant idea.

"Oh, uhm... Machineel is a tropical flowering plant and laurel is an evergreen from the Mediterranean, they're very different wood types. Machineel needs hardening spells to give it some level of stability and laurel needs to be softened for flexibility instead." She tilted her head, looking at Gal through the window. Was this a security measure? She really wasn't aware that her cousin had become so paranoid, of late. Perhaps she shouldn't worry her further with all of these thoughts and just talk to her about wanting to get out of the house more. That was true too, she did. Maybe it would gladden Galenia to hear it.

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A Hole In The Earth

YOU HAVE BURIED CHILDISH QUALITIES
FRIEND MAKE SENSE OF ME, FRIEND MAKE SENSE OF ME
I HAVE MANY DESTRUCTIVE QUALITIES

This was Galenia's normal-- back to the checks and scares of the Second War that she and their family had mostly missed. She rather doubted that they'd take a wandmaker again, not when their Riddle had failed so dismally in the hopes of a (the?) Elder Wand. Still, it was deserved paranoia, when she'd been one of the last to see great-grandfather Garrick before he'd been taken. Two years in France had followed, and while Ottavio and Adrienne had came out of that, Galenia still had never felt quite as safe anywhere as she had before that.

It was, however, simply part of growing up. Childhood was safety, and children grew up as safety died. Sometimes that happened sooner for some than it did others-- after all, childhood was the kingdom where nobody died. Like nearly everyone with even short roots in Magical Britain, Galenia had lost some people to the First War. She'd been two when it ended, and had neither known nor remembered anyone. She'd seen pictures, of course, but it was a distant sort of loss-- oh, my great-great-great grandfather, his son, some third or fourth cousins, enough so that Galenia could say she lost none. She was lucky enough Garrick had lived past his kidnapping and imprisonment, that the Ollivanders had left for France.

Well.

Living was a generous term, with how he and his children had never been the same since then. Still, like all Ollivanders, he carried on. He met Gaia, his first great-great grandchild, thankfully born back in the United Kingdom. But it wasn't the same as when he'd met Gael, or Galtero and Gentza-- and he'd been the face of the shop. Generations of children brought wands from him, or from Gráinne. Galenia had only been fully noticeable for about twenty years, after all. The shop and history was on her, but she was still not recognized as the Ollivander, or the expected Ollivander. So of course she did what she could to help. Didn't-- wouldn't everyone? Any sane-minded person?

So yes, she checked before she opened her private doors. But she'd done the same even were she not helping. It was the Right Thing after all, and she was a bloody wandmaker. What was she suppose to do-- not, and push herself to eight wrong sides?

"Gael," she opened the door with a smile. "I'm sorry. Paranoia, you know. . ." it had been too long, really. "I'm so happy you've come to visit; I've missed you so much." Gael was very much a third daughter to her, she felt-- after Gael had lost both her parents, after her grandmother-- she'd loved her younger cousin, and as the protegee of Gráinne who spent the most time with her, she'd been a familiar face. With children-- younger, but still around, it would give Gael others to be with. Ollivanders were a large clan, for all that they were somewhat isolationist-- it was always best to be with family in times of trouble.

☆@gael ,500 words☆

❤fai

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“You were flaunting all your open wounds”

[attr="class","character-spring-1d"]Gael couldn't say that being around people was easy to her, not even when she knew the people personally. Her family was better, they knew that interacting was hard for her and they didn't try to get her to step out of her comfort zone. There was little point to it, since there was no need to leave the safety of her home, she wouldn't. But her family made her feel better about herself, not like she had to change or improve herself. They understood why she had such a hard time coming out of her shell. Maybe she would eventually end up far too alone, maybe she would go crazy in her little cottage bathed in silence. It would be an unfortunate end, wasting away in her own isolation, but she didn't think she would care all that much. Really, it felt as if she was drifting through life. She didn't know where she was going or where she even hoped to end up, but it didn't matter either. Gael was going through life one day at a time. She did her work, made jewelry and wands and completed clients' orders. She went on her walks, she cooked for herself and read new books and looked after her mother's garden. Life was what it was and she would continue in this way for as long as she had to.

"It's been a while. I've missed you also." Gael offered her aunt a small smile and reached out for a brief hug. Truly, she didn't know if she had felt something like 'missing'. She enjoyed spending time with Gal and figured it had been a while since she had done so. It would also be good for her to seek guidance on everything that had been plaguing her lately. Should she leave the sanctuary of her lonesomeness and try to help people? Even if it was so difficult she could barely stand being here in the shop, in Knuckturn Alley, let alone interacting with new people? "How have you been?"

[attr="class","character-spring-1e"]date • outfit • @ gal

✽

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