| [ They say he'll cure all manner of ailments, if you're penniless and come to him in pilgrimage; they say, if you're more well-heeled, that he can make your problems go away with the right enchantments, and for the right price. They say a lot of things about him, really. That he's vain, a playboy, tempestuous, but also too altruistic, too kind. An eccentric genius. That he can smite his enemies with a wave of his hand — that his onetime friend, the Grand Sage Alhaitham, disappeared because of a curse that he himself weaved.
Rumors have it, if the rumors are true, that the wizard Kaveh lives in a castle by himself, hoarding fine jewels and clothing, and that he eats the hearts of pretty girls who strike his fancy.
Aether figures none of it is true, because such a fantastical figure wouldn't have need of a cleaning lady otherwise.
Anyway, Aether's not a lady. He's not a pretty girl, either, so he figures he doesn't have to worry about that part of the rumors. His twin sister Lumine is a pretty girl, though, and is always batting away her admirers at the bakery — he, on the other hand, has found himself tucked away in a small studio, making hats at the millinery instead. Business for the hat-shop itself hasn't been going well these days, though, so Aether's taken it upon himself to search for additional employment.
The advertisement was an odd thing, and what was stranger was that no one else seemed to have noticed it. Job postings on the local message board often get torn down and taken away by interested parties in an instant, but Aether, despite arriving to it rather late in the day after his hatter's work, found the paper pristine and untouched. It was short, too: didn't say it was from the wizard Kaveh at all. Just said Wanted: Cleaning services. Interested parties may inquire at Kaveh's moving castle.
And what kind of an advertisement is that? How does one find a moving castle? But he'd managed, somehow. The tittering girls in the plaza had told him where it was: There, that's Kaveh's castle! Oh, do you think he'd eat my heart if I asked? Don't be stupid! You don't want that, no matter how he looks!
The castle is all white marble and fantastic moving parts, ethereal in its outward beauty. Flowers adorn the building's walls; cascading waterfalls drop from the palace's roof, never draining, ever-flowing. And yet, when Aether marches to the castle's gates and knocks on the front door... ] |
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