#earthrunes

It is not yet pennons, and yet Zara can't help but notice the pull of the unseelie on folks. Not everyone mind you, but increasingly so. She suspects she might be able to just whisper a few chants about passion before duty, or honor being a lie, and it might bump folks over.

Makes her wonder if Clem has gone midriff bearing yet?

Naturally, she's above playing wicked jimminey cricket

Tis the season, after all.

Or maybe not.

Well, it is the season, but... ah well...

Velvet seems to be trying to fight it by stricter victorian dress

Of course, she's likely doing it for Tylar. He far prefers the Seelie.

And then there is Leonora

Who has a bit more sauce to her walk

as she enters the library, and SETS some books down

Zara deposits a certain book where Velvet may find it.

"Hey, Zara. How goes?" Leonora says warmly as she puts the small box of books down

"Well, a new box of books hath recently appeared..."

She peers! She's as bad as Bronte.

"Oh, this will bore you I'm sure" A wink\

The books are hardbacks of Nora Roberts books. Obviously not all her works, but at least 12 books.

And one Talia Amur!

"The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy" She points to three books "Not her best, but it involves Witches so I thought some around here would like it"

"Well, I suppose...."

"Know you if Coradel has read it?"

"You know, I'm not sure if she has or not."

The Talia Amur book however, well, that's her first book...wait, Illustrated ? This better not be a graphic novel, not without her approval. What printing is that?

Brow, and she cracks it open to look inside.

"Oh that, collector's edition put out by her publisher with new art ..."

Well, the gold print is a touch garish, but it's only the chapter headers....

but then, at the end of each chapter, a full page illustration of a scene within the chapter. Some of the lustier ones

"Gold. Feh."

And, it's Earl's art, exquisite, macabre, and.. .she did not know he was doing this! She had told her publisher he would be fine for gothic romances but some of these scenes she did not know he had done small paintings OF

There's the one where the Vicar is tending to the heroine's ankle which is sprained. Somehow quite provocative... 'lustier' being a relative term

Another with her crashing into a hunter, after the scare of her life and a run through the woods, her garments slightly shreded

Zara's eyes widen. "Oh... oh, this should go on the reserved shelf..."

Earl has drawn not her sluagh nature, but, and perhaps this is more her imagining than his actual art, but the heroine certainly FEELS like she could be a mortal kinswoman at the least.

"Well I've already read it, of course. Man I wish she would write faster. If I don't learn what happens to the femme fatale who refused to kill our heroine despite displeasing her master, I'll burst. I love a 'bad girl has a heart of gold' story"

A touch of Vashti in the works for that storyline, of course. Zara took liberties (one presumes 😉 )

"Anyway, this one was so fancy I thought it would look better down here. I've got my own dog earred novel" Leonora says happily

"Aye, we wish to keep it nice..."