#noslore

okay, so:

The fic was not very specific about what types of magic did or did not exist, which in my book means all of them do. I used magic ideas from all over, but words have power, right? So the basic idea is that anything that can be used to carry meaning can carry magic power (like the language of plants magic in the fic).

The dried and potted plants are used in potions (and infusions) and spells and rituals (some are herbs, but there are some non-edible ones too).

The glass-orbed ones: the glass has runes etched on them (health, luck, love, and prosperity, according to a 5-seconds google search), that form a spell that is partly powered by the mossy rocks and low-maintenance plants inside. Because life is energy, so it's power and magic. It's mostly low-key and ambiant stuff that's supposed to seep into the atmosphere of the house. Like, it won't keep you from breaking your leg in a car accident, but it will mean you don't develop cancer or scoliosis when you could have, and maybe you heal just a bit faster.

On the side of one bookshelf are knotted ropes. They were used to hold inventory in South America, so they hold meaning, so they can hold spells. They can either hold energy that is released when you burn, cut, or untie them (like batteries), or like the orbs diffuse subtle magic in the air. If you burn/cut/untie them the energy released can take different forms, which can be used offensively (esp. if cut) or channeled into other spells (esp. if untied). The colours are only cosmetic.

The etched stones on the wall shelves beside them are used for wards for specific places: generally you put them in your yard / around your house in specific patterns or at specific distances and they protect or warn. Magic practitioners can etch them directly on living trees or in the architecture of the house itself and it's stronger, but this is the easy portable version (the symbols on the stones were generated by Watabou's Rune Generator: https://watabou.itch.io/rune-generator).

The rocks poster: in summer souvenir shops they tell you to buy this specific stone because it helps fight bad dreams and morosity and get friends and find love (maybe not all the same rock). So, okay, stones have magical properties. You have a list of them, what they're good for, what other stones their energies don't play well with, etc.

On the central island are rocks (and engraved/magical-ingredienty ceramic beads) that you can buy to make your own jewellery / wards / rituals with (you can refer to the helpful rocks poster for that) as well as already-made necklaces and wristbands. Jewellery is mostly for passive skills (defense, luck, enhancements), rituals are for active ones (summons, portals, curses, etc.; sometimes the stone breaks during the ritual and you have to buy another one or use them for another kind of ritual that allows for smaller rocks, but not always).

On the left are spools of wire that can be used to make wearable jewellery or mobiles or as raw material.

Mobiles and chimes (they're totally sold there, just in the back of the shop where you can't see them from the door) are house jewellery, basically. Passive place-specific enchantments. The way they move creates a different kind of magic, more fluid and naturally a bit chaotic.

Feathers, under the counter, are ingredients too for magical stuff. As well as driftwood and sea-eroded glass and pebbles and bones (there are some in the shop! Just, in a closed drawer okay) (rituals use metaphor extensively; if you have enough imagination you can use anything, the more history it has the better, including, like, shards of CD-ROMs or an old coffee grinder).

The books are about magical theory, magical practice, biology, ethnology (how do you call books about selkies if they're sentient beings? Well, that. Both from internal and external points of views), legends, history, linguistics, anything. Even kids' books for magic-community-specific lore.

- the best way to gather information and get close to high-profile targets is not as a high-society lady but as a high-society lady's helper. The girls in the Black Widow program were taught to kill, to dance, and to help. So they learned to clean efficiently, to choose clothes for any occasion, and they did each other's hair. As this was an activity where the result counted more than the process, it was not as tightly supervised as others. It was also one of the rare violence-free collaborative activities. So for the girls, and for Bucky who trained them and spent some time with them in-between missions and training (because freezing and unfreezing him took time so they didn't do it for too short a downtime), it meant safety and comfort, and still does now. So, sometimes, when she's feeling quiet and safe and content, and she wants to spread the quiet and the safe and the content around, Nat braids Bucky's hair, and sometimes he braids hers. - Bucky also braided his sisters' hair. Before the war, and hydra, and everything, back when the world was not just jagged edges.