Haunted House 24: What If?

[aldersprig]

First: A story featuring a male keeper and a female Kept.
Previous: Magpie

🌳🏚🌳

The brandy cup kept refilling.  The piles of “loot” seemed never-ending, almost as if the house was bringing more in from somewhere else. And every box and pile needed careful sorting. Mélanie had several boxes full of things and had come up with several more categories - including “sex toys” and “things to tie people up with, ack” - by the time she thought to look out the window again.

The moon was up; the sun was down.  Mélanie swallowed.

“House? House, have you been trying to distract me?”  That would explain why there kept being more and more boxes.

A trunk thumped down in front of her and opened up.  Silk came whisking out - a dress. A dress worthy of a queen, or at least a Contessa.  

“You are trying to distract me.  Are you worried?”

read on…

Comments

[thnidu]

Love it!


• A dress worthy of a queen, or at least a Countessa.  
> Either English "Countess" or Italian "Contessa" (no U), not this hybrid. Unless it's intentional, of course, in which case Why, please?

[aldersprig]

*cough* mostly I can’t spell.

Which one is the barefoot lady that says that if you can’t make your own blood-of-virgins storebought is fine?

[kelkyag]

The Barefoot Contessa. I have one of her cookbooks, and would not have thought to describe it that way, but ... yeah.

Also, more opinionated house! But also wandering off for at least a bit.

[aldersprig]

I’ve seen any number of variations on this one, which is what got me into the meme.

But this variation is the sort of thing I was thinking of

[kelkyag]

I had no idea she'd been meme'd. I've seen the text of the former with a cartoon picture of a medicine bottle full of pill-kittens, which was oddly adorable and rather unexpectedly but effectively anthropomorphized neurotransmitters.

[aldersprig]

Yeah, the Neurotransmitter one has been meme’d out further into adorableness, and I really love that one, because it is… it’s supportive, in a sense.

[kelkyag]

Certainly the context I saw it in was supportive. And oh so adorable.

[aldersprig]

I sent one of the cuter ones to my dad when he asked how long I was going to stay on anxiety meds

[aldersprig]

It’s a good house! I’m very fond of her :-)

[sauergeek]

...and Mélanie finally twigs that the house is up to something. Good on her. I'm glad she still had the presence of mind to convince it otherwise. Though discovering that the house can strip her is something I'd find rather disconcerting, I suspect even if I was drunk. She takes it with surprising aplomb.

She also manages to pull herself together well enough to get equipped to try to do something about it. Hooray for the house helping there. I'm leery of that axe; sharp things while drunk more often than not end up hurting the wielder more than anyone else. I have no idea how alcohol affects Workings, but I expect the answer is "not well". Hope she can figure things out, or that she or the house has a way of helping purge the alcohol.

[aldersprig]

It’s a very magical house, after all.

I sort of forgot that she was drunk so we’re going to go with “the house reluctantly sobered her up.” *Handwave*

[clare_dragonfly]

Eee! An adventure! I am sad to leave the House, but excited (and nervous) for Mélanie and what she will find...

[aldersprig]

We’ll get back to the house soon enough! Hopefully. Once Mélanie has found Jasper and gotten him out of trouble and and and...