Norma
Emil Pecheur
Chateau de Pecheur

As soon as Emil knocked on the door, he was bombarded by his cousin Esme, whose hug felt like the grip of a constrictor snake. He knew this because when he was younger, he had procured a constrictor snake, naming him Charlie, and proceeded to keep him in a small cage in the backyard until one day, in a rebellious display of autonomy, he rudely wrapped his body around Emil's chest and squeezed him tightly. It was only when Emil promised to free him from his metal confines that Charlie let go and slithered away into the Araedian countryside. Last he heard, Charlie was living alone in the woods now, accosting unsuspecting deer and squirrels with his inappropriate hugging. "Good riddance," Said Emil when he was gone. Now he thought of him only when he was hugged too tightly or possibly when he was in the throes of asphyxiation.

After a most stimulating hug, Emil felt himself being shoved into the house. The sight immediately before him was more breathtaking than even Charlie's grip. Standing in front of him was a doe-eyed raisin dispenser, exactly like the ones he had dreamed about in his raisin-eating dreams (they had appeared more frequently when he was a child, though recently Emil had envisioned himself eating raisins out of the hands of a Cleburn impersonator and was most upset when he woke up and both the actor and the raisins were nowhere to be found). As soon as Esme twisted the dispenser's ear, Emil dropped to his knees and began picking raisins up by the handful. Only once they were all plucked clean off the floor did Emil stand up and pop a bunch into his mouth.

"'S good!" He exclaimed, mouth full of raisins. After a few moments of loud, conspicuous chewing, Emil began to speak again. "Oh, my dearest cousin! I've missed you terribly." He nodded and shoved another handful of raisins into his open mouth, continuing this pattern until all the raisins were eaten and he wiped his hands on his trousers, satisfied. "Did you make that yourself?" He asked, pointing to the raisin dispenser, which seemed to be looking right at him. He smiled gratefully back at it before turning to Esme.
David
**Esme Pecheur
Chateau de Percheur**

"I missed you too," Esme said, watching Emil feed himself off the floor with more enthusiasm than expected. "I didn't make it. I was passing by the home of a family that was about to burn it in their yard. I asked if I could take it. They said no, mentioning some rubbish about it being cursed. I held out a few coins that were loose in my pouch and asked again, and they let me buy it. I thought it seemed perfect. I'm glad you love it."
Norma
Emil Pecheur
Chateau de Pecheur

Emil listened to Esme's story with much trepidation. "Cursed?" He repeated, grimacing. He wiped his hands, still sticky both from the raisins and from a sudden torrent of sweat, once more on his trousers. Emil was not superstitious. Yes, he believed in faeries and gremlins and gnolls and even land sharks, but he also believed that they existed far away from him and from the rest of civilized society, so he paid them no mind except for when he would wake up, screaming from yet another nightmare of a land shark biting his shoes. 

Curses, however, were another matter. "Dad's been talking about curses for months now," He told Esme, whispering conspiratorially. "He thinks the *S.S. Guimauve* Is cursed, and that's why they're not catching any whales. I think he was planning on seeing a witch about it, but he decided against it when he saw that play about the three witches. You know the one? It's got a nifty dance number around a bonfire. They're touring all over the country, I think."

Emil looked over at the raisin dispenser once more, whose gaze, which previously seemed quite benevolent, had suddenly turned menacing. "Maybe it's like Charlie and we ought to just set him free before he sneaks up and kills us," He said. "Or," He glanced at Esme, "Maybe we could sell it."
David
**Esme Pecheur
Chateau de Pecheur**

"Sell it?" Esme said thoughtfully. "I do like money... I suppose it's also still possible to eat raisins without a dispenser."

Esme became aware of the rats watching them from the corners of the room, chittering wrathfully at the humans. They were violating the covenant, for any morsel that touched the ground belonged to the rodents. The rat king would not be pleased. "Perhaps we should go to the market," Esme suggested, spinning the wooden boy's ear again to make more raisins fall, hoping it would make up for the transgression and let the Pecheur house be spared mercifully. "Let's go."