NovMo 2024: Castle Collaged

It's that time again friends! I'm going back to the old "funky shifting setting" idea again, but this time in a cozy, extremely-inaccurate-but-almost-Italian-Renaissance castle. Hopefully containing the story to a single location will keep it under 50k so I can complete it during the month.

Goals:

• 50k words or finish the first draft
• Have fun
• Work on keeping momentum (bracket time lol) instead of perfection
• Play some good hockey
• Eat turkey

Blurb:
Neve is not a mage. But when King Pierro calls on each of his dukes to send their best mages to break a curse on his castle, the mage-less east is in trouble. Picked at random by a quack mage-dowser, Neve is quickly shipped off to Castle Aurono, where she must use all her wits to avoid raising the suspicion of the real mages while bickering royal children and queens-to-be cause chaos around all around.

[BRACKET TIME!!!]
Love the aesthetic of that cover and I love a good secret! This setting sounds so fun to play with too. I wish you the best of luck this month!!

Hahaha I am doing so many things lol. I had a hockey game today and dance practice yesterday, but we are at 3000 words! Not too late to catch up on things tomorrow.

I will probably leave this one in its word document and only publish if I get to draft two (fingers crossed!), but here's the opening bit for you all.

Neve’s nonnas always told her: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. The refrain plays in her head on repeat now, warbling in that way her nonnas’ unsteady vocal chords did, scratchy with age and warm with wisdom. In another situation, maybe she’d feel the prick of tears at the corners of her eyes. Maybe her breath would hitch, or her hands would shake.
Right now though, it’s all she can do to keep everything in.

Happy Novmo : )

Here's a line that I think says a lot about Neve:

“Goodness, raise your heads,” the king says, with a dismissive wave. “You’re all here to do me a favor. There’s no need to stand on ceremony.”

Do him a favor, sure, Neve thinks, raising her head. Like we’d do him this favor if he wasn’t the king.

More excellent Neve:

Shimmying her way back up into her chair, she raises a hand and pastes on her best blank, serious, academic face. “Seconded.”

“Were you under the table?” Gabriele asks.

Instead of dignifying that with an answer, Neve just looks desperately at the archmage. Please dismiss us, she thinks at him. Please, please, please dismiss us.

Neve’s head thrums with the beginnings of a headache. “What exactly are you trying to achieve?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

No! Neve thinks. It’s not! You haven’t said! But instead of shouting, she just purses her lips and tilts her head and tries to give the contessa her best ‘I’m disappointed in you’ face.

Dama Sophie colors such a bright pink that she matches her dress. She whips out a fan from who-knows-where and immediately covers half her face. “I… want to catch His Majesty’s attention.”

Heavens. That’s so lame. Neve massages her temples, trying to find the way to turn down that request, but Dama Sophie cuts her off.

“It’s just! Dama Belli is so refined, and her father is a duca, and they’re an important military family, so obviously she’s in the lead. And Dama Mitra gets along disgustingly well with the children, which obviously is what His Majesty is looking for–he already said so–and I’m just. Well! I’m just pretty!”

Just pretty, Neve thinks. As if beautiful women haven’t had wars started over them.

“I need him to fall in love with me!” whines Dama Sophie. “That’s the only way I’ll stay in the running!”

“And why do you want to be queen?”

The contessa’s mouth pops open, aghast. “The queen is a trend-setter! An icon! Being at the forefront of fashion and conversation and patronage of the arts is important to me.”

“Was the late queen like that?” Neve asks.

The contessa pauses. She snaps her fan open and closed a few times, and Neve hears the tap tap tap of one of her shoes against the wooden floor. “Well. No. But my parents want me to be queen.”

Neve has a vision of herself pushing this silly, shallow young woman off the edge of the wooden floor. The contessa would trip, face-first into the stone, and come out of it with the red imprint of tiny rocks all over her perfect, pretty face. Her diaphanous dress would tear, and she’d run off crying and never bother Neve again.

Instead of doing that, she just sighs, gathers her papers into a neat stack, and pats the floor next to her. Dubious, the contessa sits.

“I know nothing about politics,” Neve starts, “but what I have seen is that you’re bold and confident, and you aren’t afraid to put yourself out there and pursue the king instead of waiting for him. And you really are beautiful, without a doubt.”

Dama Sophie preens at that, and Neve immediately regrets saying it.

“All that to say that you have qualities that I’m sure would be useful if you became queen, and I’m sure other people see it too.”

The contessa is quiet for a glorious few seconds, stewing in Neve’s compliments. Her face is sweet in profile, with a slightly upturned nose, high cheeks, and a soft jawline, all atop a slender neck. She fiddles with the wrist strap on her fan before tucking it away. Then she sets her mouth and snaps back to look at Neve. “Thank you,” she says, snooty again. “That was very kind. So will you make me something or not?”

Neve really is going push this woman into the rock pit.

Some more fun interactions : )

Ahhhh! This looks so fun. I love it! You have some really fun snippets up there!

(Also, it almost looks like you and @Spearmint have very similar ideas... like non-mages pretending to be mages, but with a completely different style, and honestly I think it's fantastic. )

These snippets look amazing I wish you good luck and lot of fun during NovMo

I wrote a horrible limerick, so Clara-the-Mage is now canonically a bad poet.

“And now…” Gabriele says grandly, as they both step back from the table, “huh. Can you read this?” He sidles closer so Neve can read the note as well, and she squints at it, trying to decipher Clara’s atrocious penmanship.

“Uh. There once was a book I so loved, I wished to share with my beloved.” Oh no, Neve thinks, cringing. Clara is really not a good poet. “Alas I have only one volume so lonely. To copy it, I am… behoved?”

“Oof,” Gabriele says, wincing.

It works, though. As soon as that last, unfortunate word leaves Neve’s mouth, the papers on the table rustle. Under the top layer of wax paper, the charcoal dust shivers, and Neve watches, amazed, as the rubbings writhe and twist on the page. A soft, playful breeze grows around them, rustling through the ends of Neve’s braid and whispering through her cloak.

The dust condenses into wriggling, swirling lines, then to rough, winding approximations of the original drawings. Then, in a snap, the wind winks out. The lines solidify on the page, a dark, perfect replica of the castle floor plan. Hesitant, Neve and Gabriele creep forward to the table and peel away the first layer of wax paper.

“Oh, wow,” Gabriele says. “Maybe Clara’s a better poet than we thought?”

Work is actually wrecking me. (Imagine me crying on the floor like a toddler throwing a tantrum) I'm going to keep writing - I have 16 hours of train travel this Thanksgiving! - but I'm not going to push myself too hard haha.

Anyway, have this fun snippet:

“Can’t you sense magic?” she asks. He’d known, after all, when her projects were magical and when they weren’t.

“I’ve searched the whole castle with my glasses active,” Gabriele says, “and I’ve never found anything.”

Neve narrows her eyes. From what she knows, Gabriele wakes up earlier than she does so he can go practice magic and swordsmanship at the training grounds. Perhaps he’s never been awake when the castle shifts.

“Have you tried looking at midnight?”

Gabriele just snorts. “Is this a fairy story? You think the castle changes at midnight?”

“I saw it last night,” Neve retorts.

“No way.”

“Yes way!”

With another glance at the grey keystone, Gabriele pivots and starts back down the stairs. His sleeves billow as he walks, infuriatingly voluminous and expensive.

“If you don’t believe me, then maybe you should stay up tonight and prove me wrong,” Neve says, stomping down after him. Her thighs and hamstrings burn, but she’s not about to let Gabriele outpace her.

“I have training in the morning,” Gabriele says, “so no thank you.”

That simply won’t do. Neve racks her brain. There must be some method he uses to sense magic. What has she seen Gabriele do? He picks at loose threads on his clothes, and–aha!

“Then let me borrow your glasses.”

Gabriele pauses, half down a step, and twists to face her. “My glasses?”

“I need a lens, and I know yours don’t magnify to the same degree as Clara’s.”

When he still doesn’t respond, she huffs. “I see you tap them every time you notice something magical.”

“You noticed?”

Neve rolls her eyes. “Yes. And the hem on your sleeve is coming out. Can I borrow your glasses or not?”

Immediately, Gabriele lifts a hand to examine his sleeves. He pulls at a long, hanging thread, stares at it like he has no idea what it is, and then blinks back at Neve. Then, instead of relenting, or handing over his glasses, or any normal thing, he smirks. He tucks the loose thread under the hem and leans in, lenses glinting in the light.

“Oh? What else have you noticed about me?”

Many things, Neve thinks. Mostly how annoying you are. She flattens her features out as much as she can and ducks past Gabriele, passing him down the stairs with her chin up. “If you won’t help me, then fine. I’m sure I’ll figure something out.”

“Well, now hold on.”

“No,” Neve says. Her thighs really do hurt from all the stairs, but she pushes forward anyway, bracing herself against the curving wall of the stairwell.

“I didn’t think”-

“Clearly.”

Gabriele hops down the steps two at a time before flinging himself in front of Neve. Darn. Foiled.

“Now, Neve,” he says, holding up a finger. “We both know that was mean. But second, I mean. I thought you were”- and here, he leans in very, very close. Neve can smell his rose water perfume and the faint, lingering smell of sweat. His blonde hair curls around him like a halo. “An accidental mage,” he finishes, barely audible.

Neve’s heart stops. How did he know she wasn’t a real mage like the rest of them? She stares at the blank, red-grey wall beyond, mind racing as she tries to think of something–anything–to say. If you can’t say anything nice, she thinks, don’t say anything at all. But she can’t help herself. Even though it was Duca Montagna who ripped her out of her normal life and brought her here, Gabriele is right there, in her face, his stupid, pretty-boy hair clean and fluffy and his expensive clothes that he can’t seem to take care of.

“Great deduction, smarty pants,” she hisses. “What could have possibly given it away?”

“For starters”-

“That wasn’t an invitation.” She tries to muscle past him as she had her first morning in the castle, but this time, he’s ready. Gabriele patters down another few steps and stretches his arms to fill the whole stairwell, legs wide so she’ll have to maneuver and risk tripping over him.

“Neve”-

“What?” she spits. “I’m an accidental mage, so there’s no way I could possibly contribute to this stupid curse removal thing? Just because I’m not rich enough to pay for school doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”

Gabriele’s jaw drops, and Neve spots her chance to escape when he flinches, arms pulling in. She shoves past him and hurtles down the steps, praying she can lose him once they make it out of this tower.

“I didn’t mean it like that!”

“Then what did you mean, Gabriele?” she snaps back.

“I just”- he stumbles for words as he scurries after her. “I don’t even understand how you’re here.”

Neve finally reaches the bottom step, and she flings the door open so hard it slams on the wall behind her. Knowing Gabriele is right behind her, she pulls his own move on him, whirling around in the doorway to block it while he struggles with the door.

“Name one living mage of renown from the eastern region,” she says. “I’ll wait.”

“There’s Oscaro di Ostana,” Gabriele says. Then, after a pregnant pause: “Wait, no, he died three years ago. Um.”

Neve gives him a minute to stew.

Eventually, Gabriele straightens up, pouting down his nose at Neve, arms crossed. “So, what? You just presented yourself at Duca Montagna’s estate and had him bring you?”

I’ll bet that’s how you got the archmage to take you on, you ignorant rich boy, Neve thinks. “No,” she says, as low and mean as she can make it. “I didn’t even know there was a curse until Duca Montagna showed up at my house with some quack mage-dowsing tool and demanded I come with him. He came up with the lie that I studied in the east. He’s the one who wanted to pass me off as a real mage. Neither of us even knew I could do magic before I came here, and I’ll bet he still has no idea.”

Gabriele gulps. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Does this boy know anything at all? Neve’s eyebrows lift into her hairline as she stares him down in disbelief. “Oh, and you all would have just believed me? Over a duca?”

At a clear loss for words, Gabriele just works his jaw, mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“I’m going back to my room,” Neve says. “Don’t follow me.”