This Mini-Story is dedicated to @lordoftherazzles's lovely fic Dragonhearted!

Words: 1.6k

Characters: Interviewer, W, Teacup-Ori

Prompt: Soulmates

The woman who wants to remain anonymous and to whom I’ll refer forthwith as “W” sits down in the comfortable armchair provided for that express purpose and looks at me from steady, dark eyes that seem to hold an expression of slight challenge.

After the initial, customary exchange of insipid greetings and void niceties, I encourage her to describe – in her own words – how she’s found herself in such a peculiar situation as to be convinced that her soulmate is in fact a teacup.

Here is what she’s confided to this eminent paper:

I was walking in the woods that lead nowhere in particular, which, in and of itself, is strange because you’d think that a forest like that would surround some stately manor or at least separate two villages. ‘Tis not so in this case; whoever enters this densely overgrown patch of land will invariably find themselves turned around and disoriented.

One has to admit that this peculiar effect has been a source of amusement and merriment amongst the people of my village for many years and so, it has become a habit I cherish greatly.

So, there I was, courageously defying the magic of the dark trees by padding noiselessly through their shadows, not expecting anything untoward or unusual to occur.

Suddenly, something thoroughly unanticipated made me freeze where I stood though. In front of me, not five steps away, lay an abandoned teacup in the snow.

To my surprise, it seemed hale enough! Believing that no wild beast would have any real use for such fine porcelain, I picked it up gingerly.

“Hello,” the cup spoke and I almost dropped it then and there, which – I can only surmise – might have been severely detrimental to its health, as far as one may use such terms for what still seemed to me to be but a piece of expertly fashioned ceramic tableware. “I am Ori.”

Stunned, I stammered out my own name with much less poise and gentility as was warranted by a formal introduction, but the spirit inhabiting the teacup is as gracious as it is kind and so no hard feelings remain from that unsuccessful first meeting.

“Your hands are warm,” he – for it was a male teacup – praised and nuzzled his handle firmly into my palm.

Of course, I asked him all the questions that rose to the forefront of my mind haphazardly. Who was he? What was he? Why could he speak? Where did he come from? Was he magical?

Unfortunately, Ori – the little cup man – was rather cagey about the specifics of his circumstances and merely provided evasive replies such as “My name is Ori, I am evidently a teacup, I was taught to speak by my family as were you, I suspect.”

Alas, he would not divulge how he had come to meet me on my stroll or where he’d return to once our meeting had drawn to an end; moreover, he was rather tight-lipped about the undeniable flavour of a seemingly rather whimsical supernatural power of which the whole thing smacked.

“That sounds fantastical,” I cry out, my eyes bulging out of my head as I stare at the mousy, little woman still sitting in front of me.

“Ha! That is exactly what I said,” W grins and takes a sip of the tea I have supplied; she makes a face on account of the bitterness of the lukewarm beverage, but – loony as she might be – she’s too polite to put her distaste into cutting words.

“And what did he say?” I prompt her, remembering that it is bad form to interrupt the eyewitness account. It has taken too much time to put her at ease to snap her out of her talkative mood by side-tracking her with inane interjections.

She leans back in her chair with an almost handsome smile that illuminates her rather stern mien.

“If you’d let me go on, you’d hear all about it,” she chides with the benevolent severity of a schoolteacher and then continues her account.

“I feel like I’ve fallen into a fairy tale,” I said to him, holding him up to my face and seeing my breath fog up his countenance.

“A retelling of one, more like it,” he quipped, visibly comfortable with being held and handled. “If it pleases you, we could meet again soon? It is time for me to hop back to the secret place I have escaped from for a breath of fresh air, but I’d much enjoy some outside company.”

Now, it is known that my people have always believed in the concept of soulmates. My grandmother – wise and toothless as she has been as long as I can recall – has ever told me that, when you meet the soul that will complete yours, you’ll just know.

There was no flash of lightning and no roll of thunder, but my heart clenched in terrible recognition of the one I was meant to find.

All of this, naturally, might sound rather fanciful to a serious investigator of the hard truths of life, but I am a simple woman who does not presume to doubt beliefs that have been upheld and nurtured by my people for countless centuries.

So, what then was I – lonely, poor, and wretched – to do other than to agree wholeheartedly to seeing Ori, a sentient piece of crockery, at his earliest convenience for another round of fruitless discussions?

“Yes,” I breathed and set him down as carefully as if he was made of glass. Come to think of it, that was not all that far from the truth, and I did well in handling him with the utmost care and respect.

I watched him go, listless, and my whole soul was quivering as a bowstring stretched too far by the reckless hand of an inexperienced archer.

Every day, I’d thus return to the forest in hopes of meeting the enchanted object – quite literally – of all my hopes and dreams once more.

A week after our initial meeting, I had almost convinced myself that there had been no such incident and that it had been but an absurdly detailed fever dream that haunted me now with the aftertaste of the devastating loss of something I had never even possessed to begin with.

Nonetheless, I returned to the woods one last time to mourn the demise of my sanity.

Just as I was about to turn homewards once more, a soft clinking sound resounded, and I spun around to find Ori sliding down the narrow forest path cautiously.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, “there was a lot going on…in the secret place. I’ve brought you a drink though!”

I stared down at the pitiful remnant of brownish sludge that had survived his trek through the overgrown bushes and the dense, gnarled roots of the tree sentinels guarding his enigmatic home.

“Am I to lift you to my lips?” I asked, afraid of committing an unforgivable faux pas by simply grabbing a sentient being as if it was indeed but an inanimate kitchen utensil.

“If you want to,” Ori replied breathlessly, a pinkish hue tinging his impeccable glaze all of a sudden. “I fear that the quality of the tea must have suffered a little, but it should still be somewhat wholesome to drink.”

He was kind, you have to understand, and so terribly sweet in his courteous, shy demeanour. To be truthful, I cared very little about the rather subpar tea, containing the odd stray leaf, he offered me; it was of no consequence to me compared to the immense pleasure of holding him in my cupped hands again and lifting his slender, delicate, terrifyingly fragile beauty to my trembling lips and tilting him ever so warily to refresh myself.

Afterwards, I gave him a little bath in the nearby stream – the water was shockingly cold – and we sat and talked for a little while. He would still not tell me about where he had come from and what bound him to that place, but my absurd instinct that he was the One for me solidified, nonetheless.

As insane as that sounds, he seemed to understand me perfectly – humming at the right moments and uttering tinkling peals of laughter at others – and I felt comfortable and cherished in his presence. What does that say about me that it took a cursed item for me to get the sensation that I was being perceived favourably by another soul?

W looks up at me defiantly at this point of her narrative, blinking back tears she visibly refuses to spill in front of such an insensitive audience. “We met up several times after that, stolen moments in the woods far away from our usual cares and worries; it was precious, and I wonder what has kept him lately.”

I admit that I am taken aback by her vulnerability and her frankness, so I look for the right words to say to her; of course, I also wonder whether I should inform her of the ongoing climate of unrest and the riots that would probably break out before long.

“That’s all,” she concludes aggressively and wrings her small, pale hands in her lap. “I met a magical creature, and I might even have had a chance at love in the long run, but now, we might never know.” Just as I am about to give her some reassuring but empty words of polite solace, a great ruckus resounds outside, and she dives towards the window in a flash of flying hair and trembling limbs.

Flames in the night and an angry mob moving towards her beloved, enchanted forest; I stand transfixed and witness the choked cry of horror that seems to deflate the once proud woman who has just finished telling her story.

“Let’s go,” I say in a mournful voice, taking her by the hand. “Let’s see what all of this is about.”

So, my dear friend, I hope this made you smile!

@fellowshipofthefics I am still at it.

Lots of love