holy healer.

with: @architectofclare​

This search was not yielding any results. They have been walking around in circles, going back and forth to the Holy Sanctum, hoping the pair had returned on their own. But, whenever she would return with the young architect, the answer would remain the same: keep looking, they are still not found. It was slowly shifting from annoying to worrying, but Mina had not been close to either of them. She has had a few passing hello’s and goodbye’s with both mister Crowley and his would-be-wife miss Blackwood, but nothing deeper or more substantial than that. She should not be worried and yet she was beginning to feel the first gnaws of the anxiety riddled feeling poking at the back of her mind. This was the third time they returned to the Sanctum only to be sent back to make one more round.

Unable to keep quiet on the matter for much longer, Mina turned to Jasper Clare and spoke, delicate frown (a quirk she had picked up from her husband) knitting her brows. “I was quite optimistic we would find them strolling towards us hand in hand or at least screaming at each other, but this complete and utter lack of appearance is beginning to feel a lot like a wild goose chase.” She huffed and asked: “Do you believe we will find them? We have been to the Blackwood estate and the Crowley estate, where else should we look? Perhaps the Typhon Inn? Maybe the forest? I doubt they would be foolish enough to elope to an inn on their wedding day. Anyone could see them and report back.” She mused. “What do you think? Should we broaden our search?”

Mina soothed him at once, just as he had known she would. An affectionate rustle through his hair. Theophilus leaned into her hand ever so slightly, anchoring himself in her touch for a brief moment. He held his eyes closed in a blink and breathed. When he’d opened his eyes, Mina was suggesting that the to-be-weds had run off to enjoy each other. In the same way Mina had attempted to seduce him, those years ago.

She flicked his nose and Theo returned to himself, resolve rebuilding his spine in the face of woe and panic. “Surely…” Theo trailed off, swallowing his words as his frown deepened. Surely they could wait the few minutes it would have taken Theo to bless their union? He had managed to wait even with Mina’s attempts at seduction. Theo gnawed on his bottom lip, trying to make sense of it. “I hope whatever has kept them is worth this scandal,” Theophilus mumbled, taking a moment to appreciate the chaos that was circling about the Holy Sanctum. How Mina stood amongst it all like an island in the sea that Theo now clung to like a shipwrecked sailor.

“You think it is likely they… uh… succumbed to their passions?” Theo asked, looking to his wife for reassurance.

She watched her husband struggle with a different kind of horror flushing his face, in a best attempt to remain stoic and not add more oil to his internal inferno. Pressing her lips together to refrain from chuckling, Mina listened to Theo speak, but once he mentioned scandal, she found herself lightly scoffing. “Ah, scandals, this town is hungry for a good gossip. You should know your flock the best, they will make a talk out of anything if they are bored enough. While their disappearance is suspicious, it is not yet worrying. Our good townspeople are simply eating this minor setback up. You will see it will all blow over once they are found and wedded. Besides -” She paused to inhale, “- they are noble and wealthy. No one would dare say anything to their faces and what they say to us behind their backs is none of our concern and only serves to show their poor taste and lack of human decency and sympathy for two young people overcome with love.”

Stopping her rather passionate rant to let her husband speak again, Mina combed her fingers through his hair, offering him a gentle, reassuring smile. “Theo. Darling. It will be alright. Even if they got cold feet and are now running on the opposite ends of the world, it has nothing to do with you. What two people decide is on them and no one else. Unless there is another person, or persons, directly involved.” She hoped her words provided comfort to him, but truth be told, the more time that passed without the pair appearing, the more tense and anxious she became. The feeling of hairs standing on the back of her neck, of something just behind her, unreachable, imperceptible.

Mina elects to take a more optimistic outlook and implores him to do the same. For her sake and his own self, he wishes that were possible, but he knows he’s wired to always be the realist, even when that expresses as negativity. “You shall not hear me speak a word against you on that,” Graham replies in a gracious tone, as if he is agreeing with her. It would only be in his head that he’d dare disagree with her desires to hope for the best.

There was no need to incite a panic without any information, that he could agree on. It is why he thought sending the families out on a search mission was a good idea. A busy mind was less likely to spin off onto a dark path. She frets over how her husband would be affected by a poor outcome and Graham finds it sweet that her love and concern centers on him now in the midst of all that is going on. He tries to force his face into returning her smile and the end result is a strange twitch of the lips that may look to some as if he just bite into a lemon.

Again she asks for his thoughts on the missing couple and now he’s hesitant to be truthful and go against her wishes for positivity. Graham also could not name a soul who would do either of them harm, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. Just that he didn’t have any leads. “Weddings do bring out the worst in people…” A jealous ex, spurned lover, unrequited crush — who knows what forces could be work to stop this wedding. Whatever is was, they had been successful thus far. “I cannot rule out more, but we know nothing at this point which wears on the nerves.”

.

Perhaps he would not speak a words against her and perhaps he agrees with her, yet the more she thinks of it, the less she believes her own words. How strange. She’s always been sensible, yet every hair on her body seems to be alert, standing upright as if she was surrounded by icy winds. How strange indeed. Perhaps it is her less conventional upbringing that makes her pick up on subtleties in the air that not many are attuned to. She hopes she is mistaken ; if anything otherworldly starts meddling with the affairs of the worldly, her beloved will have a fit. Or a stroke. She’d prefer he had neither.

“We all need a little calming down. I truly hope they have just succumbed to the bouts of cold feet, premarital jitters or, the more satisfying between the options, premarital lust. If they are going to be this late and making all of us worked up over, hopefully, nothing, they should at least be having fun rather than panicking like the rest of us.” Mina added with a softness in her voice she reserved only for those she was truly comfortable around. Lord Graham seemed to be one of those people so when he finally spoke him mind, she found herself silently agreeing with him, lips pressing together in thought.

“I am inclined to agree with you.” She relents with a sigh. “Though I stubbornly choose to remain optimistic in thinking they are simply enjoying each other’s presence, I am not foolish to dismiss a perfectly sensible alternative.” Mina paused as she pondered his words, then continued: “Do you have a suspect? I cannot say I heard much gossip around master Crowley and miss Blackwood, but truthfully, I haven’t really been paying attention to what idle townspeople say in the first place.” She won’t say it, but noticing Iris Vampire not too far from where they stood, if there was anyone she would bet had their fingers in the couple’s disappearance... it would undoubtedly be them.

Location: The Holy Sanctum, approximately 2:20 pm @hemlocksiren

A marriage was the most sacred of rites, the most happy and joyous of rites. Joining two souls as one, for eternity, before the eyes of God and man. And the couple today were so perfect, the union of two old, well-respected families of the Netherfield Parish. The weather this morning was perfectly mild, sunlight shone above…

But around noon, the winds shifted. Theophilus noticed it, and tried to think nothing of it, the Northerly swells. Portents of doom, as the couple were later and later, until their absence was noted by the crowd. Theophilus heard nothing after that declaration, he stood tall and stark like a statue at the front of the church as the congregation began to talk amongst themselves, calling up a search party. Someone came to speak with him, Theo heard them not, all he could do was reply automatically and wait for his wife to be free.

Once she had finished her conversation with Lord Graham, Theophilus quickly came to her, taking her arm wordlessly to lead her to the side of the room, to a little privacy they could be afforded.

"Oh Mina," he softly cried once they were out of earshot, wishing they were private, that he might clutch her as he truly wished to. "Mina, I should have fetched them earlier! I meant to- I wanted to go over their vows… I should have gone over their vows with them, if I had done so they would be here! But instead! Instead I hid myself in here, practising my lines. Lines I may never utter again if they cannot be found!" His first marriage ceremony, and it was a disaster. "What does it mean, if both bride and groom are absent from the first marriage I am to conduct?"

.

It would appear that the jitters she had during her conversation with lord of Mulberry was solely due to her husband’s impatient and quite anxious glances cast her way. While she spoke to lord Graham, Theo was occupied by the frightened flock of the Holy Sanctum, but she knew her husband well enough to know he, too, was quite probably panicking worse than a deer caught in a hunter’s trap. Fighting an urge to crack an affectionate smile before she finished chatting with the young lord, Mina wondered how long will it take her husband to whisk her away the moment her current conversational partner said his goodbyes and went off on the town wide search.

As expected, lord Graham barely managed to walk five steps away before she felt an all familiar touch of her husband’s hand guiding her further away from the crowd - although the majority of people already cleared out and paired off to go searching for the Bride and the Groom. He immediately started to speak and Mina gently ran her fingers through his hair in an attempt to soothe him. The only way she could calm him is to divert his attention elsewhere. “No one can know what would have happened if you went out to meet with them beforehand. Perhaps you would have stumbled upon something...” she hesitated for a moment, fighting the urge to crack a grin - it was neither the place nor the time, and most definitely not the occasion, for her train of thoughts. But she knew he’d be waiting for her response, so she continued. “Perhaps they are simply enjoying themselves, having lost the track of time in their bliss. Not everyone shares our devotion to restraint, my dearest.” She replied, a knowing smile tugging at the corners of her lips. It was a soft, light hearted jab in an attempt to distract her husband from thinking of the worst possible outcome.

“Ish.” Mina tsked, very gently flicking the tip of Theo’s nose, before fixing his robes and resting her hands upon his shoulders, giving him a light, reassuring squeeze. “It means people are unpredictable and governed by their whims. The worst case here is that they got jitters, or they eloped, or they are enjoying activities two young, healthy people enjoy when they are caught up in the romantic air of a wedding. Relax and breathe.”

Graham had advocated for the wedding guests to split into groups for the search party and yet his feet remained firmly glued to the stone floor. Whatever was out there, he didn’t want to be the one to find it. The cravat around his neck had been growing tighter all morning and now felt like it was choking him. Fresh air might do the trick, but that would look as though he was heading out to search for the bride, which he was hesitant to do. Thankfully Mrs. Harris came over before Graham could appear the coward, her smile wide as the cross hanging behind the pulpit.

He’s unable to return the expression but given the circumstances he doesn’t fret over it. She asks how he’s faring and the compassion doesn’t surprise him as Mina has always been kind, though it doesn’t make him open to answer. Instead he focuses on her second question which addresses the issue at hand. “I do think it possible, but in what state…” His words trail off as dark thoughts swirl in his head that he doesn’t want to speak into truth. Best case scenario the married couple would be found partaking in the marital act ahead of their nuptials. Worst case scenario they would be found in a manner similar to the nightmares that plagued him for over three decades.

At this point the flip of a coin could give them equal insight into the possibilities. The last time a wedding in Netherbridge didn’t take place the bride was never found, so he hopes that the odds are in these families’ favor and land on the other side. “My concern is, are the families prepared for what they might find?” And what they might not, though he keeps that to himself. Not knowing plagues the mind with endless possibilities and haunts the soul with the truth you all but know is true.

.

Young lord of Mulberry had a weight placed upon him by something undoubtedly macabre and grim, perhaps even ghoulish. It could be just imagination running wild or a thing more sinister in nature than anyone would have been inclined to guess, but if she to place a betting coin, she’d vouch for the latter. It could have been a hunch, womanly intuition, or a passed down ‘witchwoman’s’ sense the female line of her family prided themselves on. She’s decided to call it a hunch and the same hunch told her lord Graham was not someone to be feared. Mina never quite understood why the people in Netherbridge seemed reluctant to converse with him, but to be utterly fair the same townsfolk seemed reluctant to converse with anyone with a sensible head on their shoulders.

His words sound ominous and there is a slight twist of a gut feeling pulsing through the very core of her being. are the families prepared for what they might find? It sounded like an echo of something forgotten, but save from the ever present intuition, she can’t really locate what it is. She pursed her lips and knitted her brows closer, images of a less positive outcome already budding in the back of her mind - an over active imagination, of course. Who is not prone to imagining things as they are spoken? To imagine is to bring to life, whether by thought, word or action.

“I am inclined to consider every outcome, but I would not jump to ill conclusions. Let us hope they are merely entertaining each other, rather than a more sinister thing happening. I cannot imagine how poorly it would affect my husband should something disastrous happen to the pair.” Mina spoke, offering the young lord a reassuring smile. “For the life of me, I cannot think of a single person who would be inclined to do ill upon the two of them.” She paused, but unable to shake off the jittery feeling that washed over her, she asked; “What do you think? Do you think it is just nerves making the worst of the situation or perhaps there is more to it?”

with: @lord-graham

She was seated in the front row, attention fully upon the restless crowd fidgeting in their seats, not moving even when the situation called for action rather that passive waiting. It was typical of nobility. They never knew when to react and how to properly respond to the situation at hand. Stealing a glance in her husband's direction, Mina noticed the tension pulsing through the room - should everyone go on a manhunt now or should they wait a few more minutes, given how they've already waited for three quarters of an hour; give or take a minute.

Not quite knowing what to do with herself, Mina rose from her seat in an attempt to join her husband by the altar - alas another person beat her to him, so hastily she changed her target, opting to converse with a well know, albeit a little shy, lord of Chauncey. She had heard the rumors, but Mina was not the kind to listen to idle tall tales strung by the bored folks of a lazy town. She approached lord Graham with a friendly smile on her face, even if the occasion was somewhat dire.