Lessons In the Arcane (Prolouge)
Title: Lessons In The Arcane
Chapter: 0 (Prolouge)
WC: ~2500
Rating: R for this chapter, R to NC-17 for the story in its entirety.
Main Pairing: Brittana
Additional Pairings: Sugtana, Quinntana, Faberry, Pezberry, Kum, Harmony/Santana with more to be added later.
Summary: Lost Girl AU; There is a prophecy unfolding in the fae world based on the belief of an interfae secret society. An agent of the dark fae Santana has stumbled upon the girl meant to be the sacrifice. There is a prophecy unfolding in the fae world based on the belief of an interfae secret society. An agent of the dark fae Santana has stumbled upon a human girl meant to be on of twenty-two sacrifices killed to unleash a dark power.
Puck dealt another ace and took the pot but there was no customary shout of victory, nor any reaction of irritation or despair from the two women he was playing with. They had continued the game as a formality of distraction for the past half an hour whilst their worry had mounted and in this moment had reached the most perfect crescendo of tension to be in that moment crowned by the knock on the door; a knock that should have released a troubled breath and instead doubled its pressure with some unknown dread.
She had only knocked once and when Quinn opened the door it was obvious as to why, a blood smear painted the front of the door as Santana slumped forward, more than one limb compromised by injury.
“Fuck, what happened?”
Quinn grabbed her under the shoulder for support; Puck had already knocked everything off of the table they’d been playing on.
“Fucking Redcap, my arms about to fall off.”
They laid her our over the table, blood had already soaked into Quinn’s white tee-shirt and as she lifted her hands to push a strand of pink hair away from her eyes she smeared a line across her forehead.
“Jesus, get me something to stop the bleeding or she’s gonna pass out.”
“Holy Shit. Forget pass out, she’s gonna die.”
Santana rolled her head against the pain to look up at the doe-eyed brunette that had just now sauntered up to the show, “Thanks for your stunning optimism Sugar, real helpful.”
“She still has enough energy for sarcasm.”
Quinn jostled her out of the way as she peeled back Santana’s leather jacket, “Great, nothing to be worried about then huh? Forget the bandages Puck, she’ll be just fine.” Quinn pressed both of her hands into a bloody shoulder where a pulse was obvious in the sudden ebb and flood of blood that seeped up between her fingers. Sugar watched the intermittent torrent, “How does she even have that much blood?” Her eyes had ballooned with wonder and fear, Santana failed in her attempt at a clever retort that got caught against her lips in a weak mumble.
Puck had braced a large amount of medical supplies against his chest and now dumped them down beside his friend.
“Santana?”
“Puck unroll some of those bandages, her blood pressure is way too low.”
Santana’s head was still turned in Sugar’s direction and as she stuttered pathetically on a soft, “Sh-sh-sh,” the girl watched her eyes do a rather disturbing roll into the back of her head. It was a look she’d already seen a dozen times in the short period of their acquaintanceship but in this context of doom it made her want to cry.
“Santana, come on, stay awake.”
“Shit.”
“Sugar.”
She realized that the attention had shifted from the dying girl on the table, who she thought should rightfully have it, to her. Quinn was staring her down between blood-matted strands of pink and blonde hair, her jaw set with a very definite sort of order.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I know you’re going to try.”
“But-“
Sugar struggled for a moment between Santana and Quinn, the two of them so drowned in blood that had she not watched the events unfold she might have thought them both wounded. Puck’s attention remained, undistracted, from his friend, his hand now cupped around her face urging him with one might say harsh words to wake back up. Still she remained, bloody and slack, most definitely dying.
“Okay, but move back a little, I gotta make sure she gets all of it.”
Puck obeyed with a speed she’d never seen him demonstrate, his dark eyebrows caved down into the worried space of his face.
“I can’t take my hands off of her shoulder.”
“I know, but just, I don’t know, lean back or something okay?”
Quinn’s obedience was laced with reservations and a hard look of warning, a warning she felt the need to repeat out loud.
“If my friend dies on this table, I am going to kill you.”
“I know.”
She took a deep breath before kissing her.
Her mouth tasted like blood, not the blood of life but instead the metallic and unpleasant science-blood, the tasteless blood of a corpse, Sugar flinched at the taste but having unwittingly tied her life to this one act she didn’t pull away. She let her breath out, but in its way it was more than breath and as she eased herself away from that taste she marveled at the stream of energy that connected the pair of them. Under Quinn’s stern accusation she kept it up until she felt her own sight dizzy, a quiver in her knee robbed her of her ability to stand and her focus was broken.
She sat on the floor for a few moments, looking mystified at Quinn’s black boots, not entirely sure if she could remember what important thing it was she had just succeeded at doing until she heard Quinn’s voice, now infinitely more tender, saying, “You scared the shit out of me.”
Having not lifted her hands for several moments out of fear Quinn had stood staring at her fingers, not wanting to break the silence that now seemed completely vital to Santana’s recovery. In that silence, though it lasted only a second, she had pondered the whole spectrum of consequences to her removing her hands and had decided it was better to put it off. She had been putting it off when Santana’s other hand had reached up to grab her wrist.
Quinn thought for a moment that Santana might say she was sorry, but whatever pain had brought such an inconsistency of character into consideration was quick to fade and replaced by reassuring sarcasm, “Tell me I did not just get awoken from the dead by a kiss from Princess of zero sex appeal land over there.”
From the floor Sugar began to squeak a defiant, “I could have let you d-“ but ceased the effort when Quinn swung her head down under the edge of the table to glare at her.
“Nevermind.”
Puck had been looking, for the last several minutes, as if he were about to pass out.
“You okay.”
“Course I am, I was just worried. What did you do, through yourself into a meat blender?”
“How did you guess?”
Despite the friendly manner of her cynicism no hint of good-will crossed her face, instead her mouth remained a snarl as she tried to shift herself into sitting position and finding that despite the closing of her wound she was still weaker than she would have liked.
“Try to dupe the wrong human?”
“I was trying to make a deal with one of them and some light fae goons jumped me for it.”
“No way, they’re not allowed to do that, are they?”
Sugar had hoisted herself back onto the table, leaning heavily on it for support.
“You think I don’t know that rainbow queen?”
“Oh….no. So why’d they do it then?”
Quinn finally found it in her to release her hold on Santana’s arm and wash the coating of blood off her hands, it seemed a silly thing to do considering she would need several showers to get anywhere near all of it off. From the sink she voiced her considerations, “They would only be that aggressive if you’d wandered into a human they were trying to protect.”
Puck offered his shoulder to help her down into a chair, “You’re sure they were light? I mean, you said a redcap right? You sure you didn’t just get on another dark fae’s turf or something?”
“I do my homework before I pick a human.”
“I know, I know, I’m just saying.”
Quinn had taken the time to wet one of the kitchen towels. The entire apartment was small, too small for the four people now inhabiting it, much less the two of them that normally lived there. They had tried for nice furniture and what they had scratched up the money to buy were a bit ragged, what they’d stolen however lived up to the standard and managed to bring a bit of sophistication. The towels they’d stolen but that didn’t at all degrade their ability to clear up some of the blood from the table, the ground was scattered with playing cards. Ace, jack, six, “So, where’s the human?”
“I’m right here.”
And there she was.
Framed in the doorway and seeming not at all bothered by the large amount of blood that covered almost every conceivable thing she’d touched, even the ground was trailed with it, already beginning to dry. She was tall, taller at least, than any of them and blonde and pretty and quite all right with being called ‘the human’ figuring that as the only stranger in the room she was being referred to as such.
“You can call me Brittany though, there are a bunch of you and calling you all ‘the not human’ is going to get kind of confusing.”
“Was the attack on light fae territory?”
“No.”
“Were light fae involved?”
“No.”
“Then I really don’t see why this is something you need to bring up with the Ash.”
Kurt put another packet of sugar into his coffee, hoping to consider the subject closed, he should have known better.
“The situation is too weird, even for territory dark just go ahead and attack each other like that.”
Rachel was never one to let things go until every possible avenue of conversation had been exhausted, “Maybe she did something to provoke them, you of all people know Santana, forever the provocateur.”
“Say what you want, this was wrong and if the Ash doesn’t believe me I’ll look into it myself, not like I’m not used to doing that already.”
It had taken only one night for most of the fae community to hear of the bloody affair, the tale made swift by speculation that its victim hadn’t been seen since and given her reputation her possible-death made news. Even knowing Santana’s reputation as intimately as she did, Rachel could taste the foul play in the whole of it and was never one to miss the drama of conspiracy, at least that’s how Kurt explained away her interest in the whole things, whether it was that or a more pointed interest in Santana herself he didn’t want to know.
“Please don’t, as your friend let me be the one to tell you that you’re already known as a bit of a meddler and this new Ash doesn’t take particularly well to being undermined. “
“Who says I’m undermining him? I’m just doing the job he’s supposed to be doing much better than he ever could.”
Rachel smiled with particular sincerity before taking a long sip of her tea.
“Where would you even start?”
Part way through her sip her eyes were drawn to something just above Kurt’s head and her smile widened even more. She took great care in replacing her paper cup on the table and arranging herself in her seat.
“Hey Sam.”
Kurt turned in his seat to see him standing there somewhat shyly, one hand jammed into the pocket of his jeans as the other held a folder of full of papers. He smiled at the pair of them nodding his shaggy blonde head once in greeting, “Hi.”
To Kurt the action now seemed obvious as did her keeping it a secret, calling in favors from his exes wasn’t something he would have normally signed off on and Rachel must have known it.
He pulled up a chair from one of the other small café tables, “How are you two.”
Sam was never one to forget his politeness, no matter the circumstances, Kurt wondered if he realized that Rachel was using him rather blatantly.
“Great, right Kurt? Keeping busy and everything, did you find anything out for me?”
“Yeah actually.”
Here he peeked a look at Kurt before opening his folder. From where he was sitting Kurt saw several photographs and legal documents, screen shots from video cameras one of which showed a rather vicious scene of the attack last night he guessed the bloodied rag-doll in the middle was Santana. The brutality worried him a bit, he had seen more than one fae go up against Santana and last less than a minute in the fight, to know that she may be lying dead somewhere stirred in him the same curiosity he thought might have animated Rachel. Suddenly he was more interested in the exchange.
“Two of the attackers were redcaps, part of a local dark fae gang led by this guy named Karofsky.”
Kurt had gone for another drink of his coffee, hoping to appear as unconcerned as he meant to and now had the bad fortune of choking on it.
“You know him?”
“Old wounds.”
Sam tired to pretend he didn’t have a look one his face that asked, ‘Old flame?’ but Kurt pretended not to notice even though it had been far from anything romantic; the entire affair had ended with a fair amount of broken bones on both sides.
“Not that the two of them are friends but I can’t think of any reason he would have them attack her.”
“I didn’t come up with anything in research either but who knows with dark fae. What’s really interesting is the last attacker.” Here Sam pulled out a picture of a pretty looking dark-haired girl.
“This is-“
“Harmony, I know her.”
Rachel grabbed the headshot with all of the drama befitting such a reveal. Sam looked pleased with himself.
“Exactly, she’s light fae. She’s in good standing with the Ash and light fae high society too, the daughter of some really famous lawyer but whats important is-“
“She was working with the dark fae to hurt Santana. I knew it, I knew something was wrong with all of this, as usual my instincts refuse to fail me.”
Kurt rolled his eyes, “Sure, all hail Rachel Berry, master of the conspiracy. So turn it over to the Ash and forget about it.”
He said it hoping that she might actually listen.
“Are you kidding me? Sam said she’s in good standing with the Ash? What is this is some kind of conspiracy reaching higher up than even we could fathom? Isn’t it then our responsibility to bring the wrong-doers to justice?”
It was obvious Sam was buying into it; he had that big goofy grin on his face.
“No, it means you report it and you stay as far away from Santana and her people as you possibly can. It’s all bad news.”
“There might be worse news.”
Sam shuffled through a few more papers looking for something specific, “When I did more looking into this Harmony girl a name kept coming up, have either of you heard of a group called The Arcana?”
Chapter: 0 (Prolouge)
WC: ~2500
Rating: R for this chapter, R to NC-17 for the story in its entirety.
Main Pairing: Brittana
Additional Pairings: Sugtana, Quinntana, Faberry, Pezberry, Kum, Harmony/Santana with more to be added later.
Summary: Lost Girl AU; There is a prophecy unfolding in the fae world based on the belief of an interfae secret society. An agent of the dark fae Santana has stumbled upon the girl meant to be the sacrifice. There is a prophecy unfolding in the fae world based on the belief of an interfae secret society. An agent of the dark fae Santana has stumbled upon a human girl meant to be on of twenty-two sacrifices killed to unleash a dark power.
Puck dealt another ace and took the pot but there was no customary shout of victory, nor any reaction of irritation or despair from the two women he was playing with. They had continued the game as a formality of distraction for the past half an hour whilst their worry had mounted and in this moment had reached the most perfect crescendo of tension to be in that moment crowned by the knock on the door; a knock that should have released a troubled breath and instead doubled its pressure with some unknown dread.
She had only knocked once and when Quinn opened the door it was obvious as to why, a blood smear painted the front of the door as Santana slumped forward, more than one limb compromised by injury.
“Fuck, what happened?”
Quinn grabbed her under the shoulder for support; Puck had already knocked everything off of the table they’d been playing on.
“Fucking Redcap, my arms about to fall off.”
They laid her our over the table, blood had already soaked into Quinn’s white tee-shirt and as she lifted her hands to push a strand of pink hair away from her eyes she smeared a line across her forehead.
“Jesus, get me something to stop the bleeding or she’s gonna pass out.”
“Holy Shit. Forget pass out, she’s gonna die.”
Santana rolled her head against the pain to look up at the doe-eyed brunette that had just now sauntered up to the show, “Thanks for your stunning optimism Sugar, real helpful.”
“She still has enough energy for sarcasm.”
Quinn jostled her out of the way as she peeled back Santana’s leather jacket, “Great, nothing to be worried about then huh? Forget the bandages Puck, she’ll be just fine.” Quinn pressed both of her hands into a bloody shoulder where a pulse was obvious in the sudden ebb and flood of blood that seeped up between her fingers. Sugar watched the intermittent torrent, “How does she even have that much blood?” Her eyes had ballooned with wonder and fear, Santana failed in her attempt at a clever retort that got caught against her lips in a weak mumble.
Puck had braced a large amount of medical supplies against his chest and now dumped them down beside his friend.
“Santana?”
“Puck unroll some of those bandages, her blood pressure is way too low.”
Santana’s head was still turned in Sugar’s direction and as she stuttered pathetically on a soft, “Sh-sh-sh,” the girl watched her eyes do a rather disturbing roll into the back of her head. It was a look she’d already seen a dozen times in the short period of their acquaintanceship but in this context of doom it made her want to cry.
“Santana, come on, stay awake.”
“Shit.”
“Sugar.”
She realized that the attention had shifted from the dying girl on the table, who she thought should rightfully have it, to her. Quinn was staring her down between blood-matted strands of pink and blonde hair, her jaw set with a very definite sort of order.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I know you’re going to try.”
“But-“
Sugar struggled for a moment between Santana and Quinn, the two of them so drowned in blood that had she not watched the events unfold she might have thought them both wounded. Puck’s attention remained, undistracted, from his friend, his hand now cupped around her face urging him with one might say harsh words to wake back up. Still she remained, bloody and slack, most definitely dying.
“Okay, but move back a little, I gotta make sure she gets all of it.”
Puck obeyed with a speed she’d never seen him demonstrate, his dark eyebrows caved down into the worried space of his face.
“I can’t take my hands off of her shoulder.”
“I know, but just, I don’t know, lean back or something okay?”
Quinn’s obedience was laced with reservations and a hard look of warning, a warning she felt the need to repeat out loud.
“If my friend dies on this table, I am going to kill you.”
“I know.”
She took a deep breath before kissing her.
Her mouth tasted like blood, not the blood of life but instead the metallic and unpleasant science-blood, the tasteless blood of a corpse, Sugar flinched at the taste but having unwittingly tied her life to this one act she didn’t pull away. She let her breath out, but in its way it was more than breath and as she eased herself away from that taste she marveled at the stream of energy that connected the pair of them. Under Quinn’s stern accusation she kept it up until she felt her own sight dizzy, a quiver in her knee robbed her of her ability to stand and her focus was broken.
She sat on the floor for a few moments, looking mystified at Quinn’s black boots, not entirely sure if she could remember what important thing it was she had just succeeded at doing until she heard Quinn’s voice, now infinitely more tender, saying, “You scared the shit out of me.”
Having not lifted her hands for several moments out of fear Quinn had stood staring at her fingers, not wanting to break the silence that now seemed completely vital to Santana’s recovery. In that silence, though it lasted only a second, she had pondered the whole spectrum of consequences to her removing her hands and had decided it was better to put it off. She had been putting it off when Santana’s other hand had reached up to grab her wrist.
Quinn thought for a moment that Santana might say she was sorry, but whatever pain had brought such an inconsistency of character into consideration was quick to fade and replaced by reassuring sarcasm, “Tell me I did not just get awoken from the dead by a kiss from Princess of zero sex appeal land over there.”
From the floor Sugar began to squeak a defiant, “I could have let you d-“ but ceased the effort when Quinn swung her head down under the edge of the table to glare at her.
“Nevermind.”
Puck had been looking, for the last several minutes, as if he were about to pass out.
“You okay.”
“Course I am, I was just worried. What did you do, through yourself into a meat blender?”
“How did you guess?”
Despite the friendly manner of her cynicism no hint of good-will crossed her face, instead her mouth remained a snarl as she tried to shift herself into sitting position and finding that despite the closing of her wound she was still weaker than she would have liked.
“Try to dupe the wrong human?”
“I was trying to make a deal with one of them and some light fae goons jumped me for it.”
“No way, they’re not allowed to do that, are they?”
Sugar had hoisted herself back onto the table, leaning heavily on it for support.
“You think I don’t know that rainbow queen?”
“Oh….no. So why’d they do it then?”
Quinn finally found it in her to release her hold on Santana’s arm and wash the coating of blood off her hands, it seemed a silly thing to do considering she would need several showers to get anywhere near all of it off. From the sink she voiced her considerations, “They would only be that aggressive if you’d wandered into a human they were trying to protect.”
Puck offered his shoulder to help her down into a chair, “You’re sure they were light? I mean, you said a redcap right? You sure you didn’t just get on another dark fae’s turf or something?”
“I do my homework before I pick a human.”
“I know, I know, I’m just saying.”
Quinn had taken the time to wet one of the kitchen towels. The entire apartment was small, too small for the four people now inhabiting it, much less the two of them that normally lived there. They had tried for nice furniture and what they had scratched up the money to buy were a bit ragged, what they’d stolen however lived up to the standard and managed to bring a bit of sophistication. The towels they’d stolen but that didn’t at all degrade their ability to clear up some of the blood from the table, the ground was scattered with playing cards. Ace, jack, six, “So, where’s the human?”
“I’m right here.”
And there she was.
Framed in the doorway and seeming not at all bothered by the large amount of blood that covered almost every conceivable thing she’d touched, even the ground was trailed with it, already beginning to dry. She was tall, taller at least, than any of them and blonde and pretty and quite all right with being called ‘the human’ figuring that as the only stranger in the room she was being referred to as such.
“You can call me Brittany though, there are a bunch of you and calling you all ‘the not human’ is going to get kind of confusing.”
“Was the attack on light fae territory?”
“No.”
“Were light fae involved?”
“No.”
“Then I really don’t see why this is something you need to bring up with the Ash.”
Kurt put another packet of sugar into his coffee, hoping to consider the subject closed, he should have known better.
“The situation is too weird, even for territory dark just go ahead and attack each other like that.”
Rachel was never one to let things go until every possible avenue of conversation had been exhausted, “Maybe she did something to provoke them, you of all people know Santana, forever the provocateur.”
“Say what you want, this was wrong and if the Ash doesn’t believe me I’ll look into it myself, not like I’m not used to doing that already.”
It had taken only one night for most of the fae community to hear of the bloody affair, the tale made swift by speculation that its victim hadn’t been seen since and given her reputation her possible-death made news. Even knowing Santana’s reputation as intimately as she did, Rachel could taste the foul play in the whole of it and was never one to miss the drama of conspiracy, at least that’s how Kurt explained away her interest in the whole things, whether it was that or a more pointed interest in Santana herself he didn’t want to know.
“Please don’t, as your friend let me be the one to tell you that you’re already known as a bit of a meddler and this new Ash doesn’t take particularly well to being undermined. “
“Who says I’m undermining him? I’m just doing the job he’s supposed to be doing much better than he ever could.”
Rachel smiled with particular sincerity before taking a long sip of her tea.
“Where would you even start?”
Part way through her sip her eyes were drawn to something just above Kurt’s head and her smile widened even more. She took great care in replacing her paper cup on the table and arranging herself in her seat.
“Hey Sam.”
Kurt turned in his seat to see him standing there somewhat shyly, one hand jammed into the pocket of his jeans as the other held a folder of full of papers. He smiled at the pair of them nodding his shaggy blonde head once in greeting, “Hi.”
To Kurt the action now seemed obvious as did her keeping it a secret, calling in favors from his exes wasn’t something he would have normally signed off on and Rachel must have known it.
He pulled up a chair from one of the other small café tables, “How are you two.”
Sam was never one to forget his politeness, no matter the circumstances, Kurt wondered if he realized that Rachel was using him rather blatantly.
“Great, right Kurt? Keeping busy and everything, did you find anything out for me?”
“Yeah actually.”
Here he peeked a look at Kurt before opening his folder. From where he was sitting Kurt saw several photographs and legal documents, screen shots from video cameras one of which showed a rather vicious scene of the attack last night he guessed the bloodied rag-doll in the middle was Santana. The brutality worried him a bit, he had seen more than one fae go up against Santana and last less than a minute in the fight, to know that she may be lying dead somewhere stirred in him the same curiosity he thought might have animated Rachel. Suddenly he was more interested in the exchange.
“Two of the attackers were redcaps, part of a local dark fae gang led by this guy named Karofsky.”
Kurt had gone for another drink of his coffee, hoping to appear as unconcerned as he meant to and now had the bad fortune of choking on it.
“You know him?”
“Old wounds.”
Sam tired to pretend he didn’t have a look one his face that asked, ‘Old flame?’ but Kurt pretended not to notice even though it had been far from anything romantic; the entire affair had ended with a fair amount of broken bones on both sides.
“Not that the two of them are friends but I can’t think of any reason he would have them attack her.”
“I didn’t come up with anything in research either but who knows with dark fae. What’s really interesting is the last attacker.” Here Sam pulled out a picture of a pretty looking dark-haired girl.
“This is-“
“Harmony, I know her.”
Rachel grabbed the headshot with all of the drama befitting such a reveal. Sam looked pleased with himself.
“Exactly, she’s light fae. She’s in good standing with the Ash and light fae high society too, the daughter of some really famous lawyer but whats important is-“
“She was working with the dark fae to hurt Santana. I knew it, I knew something was wrong with all of this, as usual my instincts refuse to fail me.”
Kurt rolled his eyes, “Sure, all hail Rachel Berry, master of the conspiracy. So turn it over to the Ash and forget about it.”
He said it hoping that she might actually listen.
“Are you kidding me? Sam said she’s in good standing with the Ash? What is this is some kind of conspiracy reaching higher up than even we could fathom? Isn’t it then our responsibility to bring the wrong-doers to justice?”
It was obvious Sam was buying into it; he had that big goofy grin on his face.
“No, it means you report it and you stay as far away from Santana and her people as you possibly can. It’s all bad news.”
“There might be worse news.”
Sam shuffled through a few more papers looking for something specific, “When I did more looking into this Harmony girl a name kept coming up, have either of you heard of a group called The Arcana?”