Spring 1888 - Carpathian Mountains, Romania

Spring was nearly in ready to explode from the mountains and Delia was enjoying the change in scenery. They were trekking through some lowlands of the Carpathians and the air was crisp and clear and not at all muggy, which was a delight. They had set up camp near a beautifully wooded area in hopes to catch the first blooms of the local magical and muggle wildflowers that populated the area. The cataloguing and collecting of specimens was going well. Their magical Wardian case was coming in handy as they collected seeds and buds in droves.

With the warm sunshine beating down on them, making the afternoon that much more pleasant, Delia has skipped off from her usual duties to try something new. It was something unconventional and certainly unnecessary in this part of the world, but she rather thought it might become useful in other places abroad, and even at home, so she was curious to try it out. Their trusty blunderbuss was sitting unused and the shells for it had gotten quite damp over the last couple of weeks of rain, so Delia was hoping to reuse them for something more... innovative.

After collecting hoards of seeds for the local wildflowers, she mixed them together and relaced the gunpowder in the shells with the seeds. Well most of it anyway. She compartmentalized the shell, a section in the back for the gunpowder and a larger portion in the front for the seeds. Now all she needed was a good hill to test it out on. She slipped away from the group for a little while, firearm and ammunition in hand until she found a lovely little dell to try her creation out on. She loaded a round, aimed and fired; what she hadn't suspected was the kickback from the gun as she went sprawling backwards, only to scramble up and check to see if the seeds scattered as intended.

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Hadrian Nott

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   Hadrian Nott

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Delia had disappeared. This was not necessarily a cause for concern – she admittedly had a better track record of refinding the group in good time than Hadrian did, generally – so he had continued mapping the area they were in. There were interesting trees and odd herds of goat-antelope chamois about, as well as the wildflowers... and he was hoping, once they got higher into the mountains, that he might come across some legendary vampire caves. He had some garlic bulbs stuffed in his pocket, for that eventuality, and had been off walking when he heard the sound of a shotgun.

He spun on his heel, trying to register its direction – and jogged in that direction, in case it was Cordelia. More likely to scare off a brown bear than a vampire, but either way, she could be in trouble – so, heart rate elevated from the thrill of said danger, Hadrian spotted her on the ground, and scrambled hurriedly down an incline towards her, afraid that she’d been injured.

“Delia!” he said breathlessly, getting out his wand as he hastily scanned the valley... and found no bears or vampires or angry locals in sight. Who was she fighting? “What’s going on?”

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set by bee!

Momentarily winded, Delia waited a moment before getting up, then stalled by Hadrian's arrival and the concern on his face. "I'm seeding the hill with wildflowers!" She announced once she had found enough air. Her smile was as brilliant and her hair a windswept mess, but she was pleased so far by the results. She reached out to lay her hand against his cheek gently. "I'm well, I just didn't anticipate the recoil from the gun." For all his bravado, Delia knew he worried about her, even if he tried not to show it.

"Come, let's see how it did!" She didn't want to linger on it, she was fine. A little winded and perhaps a little bruised, but that was nothing compared to some of the things they had encountered across the years. Delia wasn't sure she'd explained this little project to Hads but that wouldn't be anything unusual. They were always so busy doing something, cataloguing and collecting specimens; Hadrian has his travel logs, Delia her notes; he tended to look for creatures along the way, while she had her nose to the ground for new plants. It didn't occur to her that this would be some sort of alarming (the logistics of it were out the window now, Dee had never been good at them) or that she ought to have warned someone about her plans.

Scrambling to her feet using her husband as leverage, Delia made her way over to where the shot had scattered to see how well the seeds had spread out.

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He peered at her as he digested the unexpected explanation for the blunderbuss shot, half exasperated, half impressed. (This was always the way with her – all these years together and she still surprised him; there was really no way to read her mind.)

And there was not much time to fully digest it, either, since she was already on her feet and bounding across to where her seeds had hit. It was an uneven spread, some seeds that had come out in clumps, so she probably ought to work on her aim and the sweep of her shot, but – “Not bad, Dee,” he commented. “I think you may be a genius.” More fond than true, perhaps – but her whimsy, at least, was infectious.

(It looked fun. He sort of wanted to try.)

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   Cordelia Emsworth

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set by bee!

"Of course I am," she passed him a look that clearly said, obviously. It was more like evil genius sometimes, but she wasn't about to admit to that.

As she trudged along the bottom of the hillside, she could see a few flaws, some clumps, some charred seeds from the powder. She would have to work on her delivery. Something to contain the seeds and then exploded? Sort of like a shatter shell. Yes! That might do the trick. "I should try a couple more times, to see if there's any other side effects now that the gun is warm." Who knew what other roadblocks she might encounter, but this was mostly for fun (and maybe a little pent up energy release) to see how her engineering skills were faring.

"Nobody else is around, right?" She quirked a mischievous eyebrow at her husband.

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She had never hindered his fun before, so Hadrian had no intention of impeding hers. (No matter how odd it was.)

Well, if the gun was warm. “You shoot your seeds to your heart’s content, love,” Hadrian said, with a cheeky grin back to her mischievous look. “I can keep an eye out for any poor unsuspecting villagers and warn them about the madwoman with a weapon on the rampage.”

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set by bee!

"Madwoman," she snorted. As if she was the most dangerous thing in the area. What a preposterous idea. She grinned wickedly at him and reloaded the gun with an efficiently that no woman probably ought to have. It was often needed for protection and Delia was never the kind to be a damsel in distress. Plus she found the science behind it fascinating with the combustion and all. There was very little in the world that didn't intrigue her for one reason or another.

She made sure Hadrian was well behind her as she turned and aimed for the next section of the mountainside. The kickback was better anticipated this time, though she she had anchored herself better, she still stepped back quite a bit and then hurried forward to see what happened this time. The seeds hadn't fared as well and she was already trying to figure out how best to protect them. "I'm going to have to figure out how to fireproof the seeds." She hummed out as she bent to pick up the charred cases.

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“Genius, madwoman – they’re much the same thing,” Hadrian acknowledged. And that wicked grin did not help her case whatsoever in her defence of madwoman, and nor did her swift reloading of the gun – but now the gun wasn’t the only thing that was suddenly warm.

So he ambled after her in admiration, mostly watching her, but as she bent down and straightened up with a seed case, he did eventually get suckered in to caring about her experimenting, too. “Hm,” he mused, “something that won’t stop them from germinating.” But protect them from the powder and the shell. There would be something, whether amongst their supplies to coat them, or some charm to get them out intact.

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set by bee!

"Maybe something temporary? Even something initiated by the heat?" It would require either some interesting potion or charmwork, but Delia rather thought she was up for the challenge. She was nothing if not determined and she also enjoyed puzzling things like this out. It was all part of the fun and just a little side project she could work on wherever they drifted.

Delia set the gun down and plopped herself into the grass with her notebook. She took in some of the charred seeds and wrote down her ideas. "I bet I could brew something, like a casing." It was certainly an option.

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The new facets of the problem did not deter her; she went to her notebook. “Some coating like you get on fire seeds,” Hadrian mused, thinking of botanical examples that already existed as impervious to the heat, and – “crossed with a puffapod bean effect, maybe, to burst out of the shell when they land.”

That was about all the energy he planned to expend on helping her: at this juncture, he plopped himself down with his own notebook – with which he had, a mere moment ago, been in the midst of his mapping – but now he turned to a new page and started sketching intently, on a task of his own. Of enshrining this to memory, the sight of Delia wielding the blunderbuss, because it was simply too glorious to be forgotten even if she moved on from the idea by tomorrow.

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