It was an awkward time in Camelia's life. First, there was the baby. Well, before that, there was the cabbage, and then there was the baby, but the baby didn't stay a baby for nearly long enough to suit Camelia.
She woke from whatever magic had struck her unconscious during the transformation of cabbage to baby, and found a dark haired infant studying her with a grave expression. It was the best and happiest moment in her life, in spite of the terrible headache. It didn't even bother her that the baby spoke, usually to voice opinions about things like what it ought to be named or how it ought to be dressed. It was a little disturbing that the baby insisted on having a drop of Camelia's blood in each bottle she fed it, but she decided that was simply the way with magic: there was always a price to be paid that you didn't quite want to pay.
Camelia spent the next weeks watching her longed for babe grow to a child all too fast. The moments she did have to spend with her growing babe were stolen. The family was in upheaval, selling fields and homes and taking to the road as a group in a mass immigration. The child- Oleander- was very clear that Camelia could not reveal anything about her baby to anyone else; doing so would cause her to lose the child, forever. So Camelia kept her silence, and tucked her child in to a cart where she checked on it as frequently as she thought she could without attracting notice.
Agreeing on a name took most of the journey to Bravia. Her child was very stubborn and rejected all the pretty names Camelia suggested. The child, when it had reached the appearance of being about three years old at the age of 4 weeks, suggested Oleander. Camelia was doubtful, but the other names the child liked were all much worse, so she finally agreed. There was a new negotiation after that, in which Camelia tried to find a more suitable nickname for her child, but the child stubbornly refused to answer to any name but the full name she and it had agreed on.
The name was easier than the gender though. At first, Camelia tried to coax the baby into being a girl by providing frilly pink dresses. The baby wrinkled its nose at these, and as soon as Camelia was gone, it stripped them. After that Camelia tried to persuade Oleander to at least agree to be a boy all the time by knitting adorable sweaters and making darling little overalls in various shades of blue. Oleander didn't approve of these either, though, and Camelia later found them all turning quickly to ash in the fireplace at the inn they took up residence in at the end of their journey. Oleander continued to change day by day, and sometimes moment by moment, slipping easily from male to female, and sometimes adopting animal forms that Camelia approved of even less than the constant changing of gender. The two finally agreed that Oleander would assume human form short of some extraordinary need, and Camelia would let Oleander alone about the matter of gender.
Their first real fight came when Camelia opened her forge. Oleander was enraged, which Camelia couldn't understand at all. She pointed out, while Oleander towered over her in his adolescent male form, that something had to provide a living for them. Oleander retorted that he could provide for them. Camelia had a strong feeling that this was somehow dangerous, particularly after her wish for a child had been granted in a way that had so often proved to be unsatisfactory, so she insisted that it was her role as his (and sometimes her) mother to provide. Oleander threatened to burn the forge to the ground. Camelia threatened to disown him. Oleander disappeared for two weeks, during which time Camelia grew even thinner and more wan, and found she no longer had the will to speak to her friends and family. She worked when it was time to work, and went sleeplessly to bed when it was time to sleep, and the rest of the time she sat at the door of the inn and looked for Oleander. One night, he finally returned, wearing his- her female form, which Camelia knew right away was intended as a peace offering. She embraced her raven haired daughter silently, and they went hand in hand up the stairs where they lay down together on the narrow bed and fell asleep with their hands still entwined.
In the morning, they began looking discreetly for a new home. Oleander was worried about remaining a secret while they stayed in such a busy place. Camelia didn't want to risk losing her child again, so she knew she couldn't stay with family. Cassie and his wife were so entranced with their own new daughter, she didn't think they'd notice her anyway if she just quietly slipped away to pursue her own separate destiny.
The first house they looked at was next door to the forge, which Camelia should have known was a bad idea, but she'd thought only about how convenient it would be. When she and Oleander arrived after night to see it, Oleander's face darkened as his features morphed back to male form. She patted his arm and whispered reassurances to him about the next place she'd show him as she dragged him down the lane, afraid that he might do something terrible to the little house if she didn't get him away from there.
The next house was a charming little cottage with a tile roof and a green door bound in filigreed iron bands. Oleander drew back from the door as if from a terrible odor, and no matter how Camelia tried, she couldn't convince him to enter the house to see its inside. Once they were safely down the lane again and Oleander seemed to have regained his voice, all he would say was that it was not for them.
The third house was rejected for having a rowan lintel at the entrance and the fourth for having silver doorknobs. The fifth house was adamantly turned down for being too close to a mine known for producing quantities of salt.
Frustrated, Camelia finally told Oleander that he had to pick the next house to look at. The next night, he assumed his female form and led Camelia down the lane, out of town, to a farm just on the outskirts. It was night and the sky was full of stars. A breeze soughed through the field that ran along the lane, with a low rise marking the end of the field just down a dirt path. A sign where the path and the lane joined announced the property rather grandly as "Ambrosian Croft".
"I don't see a croft. Or a house. Or anything," Camelia told Oleander as she peered into the dark.
Oleander replied by lifting a slim, white hand in to the air. A small globe of light grew up from her palm and drifted down the path to light their way, getting gradually brighter and larger as it approached the small hill at the edge of the field. The light eventually let Camelia make out the curious sight of windows set into the hillside in a neat row. A rough hewn door of hawthorn led into the little turf house. Oleander gave Camelia an expectant look as she wandered through the main room, down along hall way to an expansive kitchen at the rear. She paced back up the hall, opening doors and counting rooms as she went.
"It's a bit odd," she said finally. "But I suppose it will do."
Oleander gave her one of the smiles that she so rarely bestowed, and for that one night, they were in perfect accord.
Then in the morning, Camelia bought a clutch of hens and a rooster, and a new fight broke out.
{ORP} The Ambrosian Croft, Camelia's Home
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