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those who say that the halls of Castle Dimitrescu are quiet, with not a hint of joy, are wrong. in fact, the newest resident of the castle thought that as well.
ethan winters, an outsider looking for his wife and newborn child, came to the castle looking for..something. who knows what. no one knows, not even him. whatever he was there for, he never had the effort to find.
instead he found a new home. a home that didn’t have his wife that didn’t trust him anymore, or a baby that never seemed quite normal. the dimitrescu daughters were lovely, even with there occasional feral behavior when they got excited. their mother, the matriarch of the house, was elegant but fierce, a force to be reckoned with.
perhaps ethan was simply there to find his daughter, or some semblance of her. would he have found it? only mother miranda would know the answer to that.
the all seeing mother miranda was beautiful in her own sense. while Lady Dimitrescu was elegant but brooding with her nine foot stature, mother miranda was the height of a norma human, but had the aura of something you would only see in child’s tales.
mother miranda would visit the castle occasionally. the daughters of the house loved her visits. they would always try to help the cooks make an extravagant feast for her, but they consequently got kicked out every time because of their shear clumsiness.
when the winter was at its cusp, ethan do his best to occupy the three energetic daughters, and keep them away from the windows, that dripped coldness. the chess board in the library has never gotten used much previous to his arrival, but now it gets used whenever cassandra is stressed. every now and then the lady of the castle would entertain ethan, and play against him, though she won every time.
and when the duke came around every month to a month and a half, ethan would peruse for anything he could use as entertainment for the women he lived with.
after spending some down time with Lady Alcina, he learned how to sew. it was just a few basic stitches, but it was something he could use. he had randomly bought some fabrics he thought the triplets would love months before, and they had been sitting in his closet since.
when the winter had passed ethan spent the summer sewing. when he wasn’t helping the castle staff, or conversing with Lady Alcina, or playing around with the daughters, or helping Lady Alcina garden, he was sewing.
they were nothing wonderful. just some cloaks that were thicker, and some decently thick gloves for the girls. ethan didn’t quite know what to do for the Lady, so he left that for future him to figure out. perhaps he could buy some nice ingredients from the duke when he arrives later that week. i’m sure the women of the house would all appreciate a meal that’s different from the set meals the cooks make. there’s nothing wrong with what the cooks make, but they make the same set meals each day.
maybe he could buy some more fabric that Lady Dimitrescu would like and try to make her a new dress. but maybe she wouldn’t like it. she’s used to fancy and intricately made dresses, she wouldn’t want some sloppily hand made dress from an outsider.
when the duke arrived ethan is out in the flourishing garden of the Castle estate, helping his lady pull weeds and replace dying flowers or flowers that she dowsing like. he’s holding a bundle of flowers that are going to be used to decorate the vases throughout the castle when he hears the familiar sound of horse hooves thump through the castle gates.
ethan sat the flowers in free basket, patted his back picked to make sure he had his wallet. his lady smiled and gave a curt nod to him, dismissing him to go talk with the duke.
the duke had some new things, as well as some things ethan had seen time and time before.
he first asked to look at spices and ingredients for a dish he used to make at home, when he had a normal life. or what resembled a normal life.
though the women of the house would most normally eat their human prey, ethan had sneakily acquired information from daniela, that they all did enjoy normal human food on special occasions. that definitely gave him some options. bella had said some months back that she didn’t like chicken, so that’s out of the question. pork has a similar texture to human meat, and beef can hold the flavor of spices very well. it’s a hard decision to make. unfortunately, ethan didn’t know a lot of pork dishes that would fit the elegance of Castle Dimitrescu, so he went with beef, deciding to make beef bourguignon (bore-guh-non).
beef bourguignon is a beef stew with your vegetables of choice. the beef is seared and set to the side, while that sits aside, you need to toss all of your veggies into a pan, dear them, and add in cognac (or any wine if you’d choice) and some beef broth. there are more steps to it, but ethan can only remember so much from years ago, when mia made it for them on a date night.
ethan had to sneak his items back into the castle without any of the daughters noticing, a feat that is not easily done. the cooks let him store the non perishable items in the main pantry, and he had to go into the basement to the chiller to store the beef. the basement was cassandra’s favorite place, but fortunately ethan knew a secret way into the chiller, due to his days spent hiding while he came up with a plan to defeat the Dimitrescu’s. Those memories aren’t fond ones, and he’d hate to every say what he did out loud. his lady and her daughters know everything now, but it still gives him a dark, vague feeling, that crawls up his throat and chokes him with guilt.
instead of drowning in guilt, he decided to go back to the grounds and finish helping his lady. she had made decent progress in his absence, being a little over halfway done. now that ethan was here it would go by quicker, as he could transport baskets of flowers inside so the staff could fill the vases. ethan looked at the different baskets, each holding different flowers. he regarded the basket full of beautiful red and white roses, giving it more thought than the others. that basket would go to his lady’s quarters. roses were her favorite, and they looked amazing this year.
other baskets with assortments of tulips, chrysanthemums, hydrangea, and his personal favorites, calla lillies. ethan was about to request that some calla lillies be put in his quarters, but his lady cut him off, informing him that the first basket full picked are already in his room, awaiting his return. he smiled to himself at the small, but sweet gesture.
Lady Dimitrescu had noticed ethan’s love for gardening within his first days living in the castle. he wasn’t assigned any duties in the castle, so he found elsewhere to occupy his mind. on his second day, he personally asked her if he could pick out the weeds from the garden. normally she would do it herself, as she found it helped her stress, but the man seemed as if he needed a distraction. an hour into ethan tending to the garden, she peaked out her window to check on him, and quickly noticed the pleased look adorning his face. he looked so at ease, so the lady decided to let him take care of the gardens whenever weeds needed pulling, or plants needed replanting. every now and then she would indulge some of her impulsivities, and go out to help him, taking a break from her own work to help the small man.
ethan had taken particular interest in the deep purple calla lilies she kept. she had considered putting in an order for white ones, to complement the purple.