Ravenwynd Asterholme House and the Parlour That Waited Longer Than Anyone Planned

The parlour of Ravenwynd Asterholme House feels shaped by a domestic rhythm that ended without ceremony. Air steeped in the faint scents of cooled tea, brittle wool, and ink left uncapped settles over every softened edge. Deep cushions bear the lasting impressions of quiet routines maintained until they simply collapsed into stillness.

The Measured, Even-Tempered Routine of Norabeth Asterholme

Norabeth Asterholme, tutor of practical sums and household writing, shared the home with her nephew Ceryn, an apprentice clasp-turner whose commissions fell off sharply in his final season of work. Norabeth kept the soft-tally recess in strict order—slates graded by difficulty, quills sharpened in matching tiers, blotters rotated each evening so no old stain met new ink. She walked a modest circuit before each lesson, murmuring calculations in a low, steady cadence. But cold winters stiffened her fingers, Ceryn’s earnings vanished, and the structure she relied on loosened by small degrees. Pages lingered uncorrected. Ink crusted along the rim of an unattended bottle. Threads of quiet disorder began to gather in corners she once kept rigorously aligned.

The Corridor Where Her Steadiness Began to Falter

Down the eastern passage, Norabeth’s boots rest angled toward the wainscot, their laces stiffened by disuse. Ceryn’s warped clasp-turning blanks scatter near the baseboard. A cracked lamp chimney lies beside a dust cloth she dropped mid-routine and never retrieved.

The Scullery’s Slow Drift Into Stillness

Inside the scullery, mismatched mugs retain pale rings of dried tea. A chalk-lined kettle sits near the smooth stone Norabeth pressed to her aching wrists after long hours of careful scriptwork. A linen apron droops from its peg, its former, crisp geometry surrendered into a limp drape.

At the landing’s farthest end, Norabeth’s final corrected slip—ink faint, margin trembling—lies beneath a shawl she never reclaimed. Ceryn’s unfinished clasp project rests beside it. Ravenwynd Asterholme House remains dim, still, and indefinitely abandoned.