Tara: Shot Through With Green
Title: Shot Through With Green
Author: Doyle
Fandom: Buffy
Pairing: Tara gen. Very minor mention of Tara/Willow, but that’s canon for this time period, etc.
Rating: G
Notes: for sappho_wilde for the Fem Gen Ficathon; request was for Tara and herbology. After Restless.
Summary: The taking and receiving part - that, she understands. That, she learned with the ABCs, her mother’s hands around hers around the dirt.
The soil’s good today. She holds a handful in her fist, lets it sift through her fingers onto the bed she’s sown. Her first few weeks at college, Tara went through a phase of reading books on magic, just because she could, now, and she remembers a lot about herbs and hands. Only take with your left hand. Only take with your right. One way means you’re taking from the earth and the other is receiving but the books couldn’t agree and she figured the fairest thing was to assume they were both wrong.
Most of the books made her wince for the trees that died to make them, and sigh for the people learning magic from them, but the taking and receiving part - that, she understands. That, she learned with the ABCs, her mother’s hands around hers around the dirt and her mother’s voice dropped to a whisper, telling her secrets. Goddess, magic, earth.
Don’t tell your father.
Fennel and foxgloves growing among the daisies and dandelions, in the neglected beds that Daddy and Donny never noticed. Weeds, Daddy said, so if he asked what they were doing in the garden Mom said weeding and it wasn’t a lie.
You have to give something back, Tara. So it’s an exchange, not just you taking what you need. A coin (she loves the mingled smell of copper and earth, even now, even after watching them put her mother in the ground) or just a thank you.
She went back to the college Wicca group the week they talked about herbs. One of the groups, anyway - by this time they’d schismed, bake sales to one side, cauldrons to the other, with a few confused hold-outs floating between the two. Tara sat in the circle and listened to the nine sacred steps of herb-gathering explained by a girl who had said, a month ago, that magic was metaphorical. Step four was abstaining from sex for a week. Willow laughed out loud and Tara had to cough to cover her giggles and she was so sure that everyone would look at them and know. They left before step five, imaginary homework and imaginary headache winning over the group’s imaginary rules.
Step four’s not a problem tonight. Willow’s been out of town a week, vacation with the parents who have finally remembered they have a daughter. Tara’s surprised to find that she can breathe without her. She hopes (sometimes, when Willow races the magic, goes too fast and doesn’t stop to think of the consequences, she doubts) her mother would like Willow.
Midsummer sunset, far from home, her mother’s gone, now - but closer, here, than she feels anywhere else in Sunnydale. Done for the day, Tara sits back on her heels, closes her eyes. She’d be shy if she thought anyone could see her like this, sitting in the dirt and about to talk to herself, but the garden is secluded. The closest building’s the elementary school and that’s closed for the summer. She wonders whether Sunnydale kids play different to those anywhere else, whether they have vampire games, pretend stakes.
It’s quiet and peaceful and she could hide for a long time here. Sometimes she thinks that if she hadn’t found Willow she would have crawled into the centre of this tiny space of herbs, let the grass grow over her.
“I was thinking about my mother,” she says to nobody, to the air. Easier than talking to people and Tara doesn’t hide behind her hair and wish herself somewhere else, doesn’t stammer, doesn’t trip over the difference between what she means to say and what’s coming from her mouth. “She used to make tea - she was sick, she got… headaches, I remember…” Her mother, holding her head in both hands and twisting on the bed with a noiseless scream of pain; her father, raging about demons; Tara takes a deep breath. Two. “She said the tea helped. In the beginning, anyway. St. John’s Wort and linden flowers, valerian, juniper berries.” She holds the memory for a moment, the colour, the smell; the first taste, slight bitterness giving way to the sweet infusion across her lips.
There’s a tingle at the base of her spine, like the memory of an ice cube held there. The eyebright by her knee stirs in a sudden breeze.
Tara doesn’t ask “Can you hear me?” Doesn’t even think it. The thing that lives in this place - demon or spirit or something she’d never thought of - it’s beyond words. She keeps her eyes closed, keeps remembering her mother’s tea, and now she pictures herself cradling the memory in her hands. Offering it.
When she opens her eyes again, it’s dark, and she’s alone.
And she isn’t.
It’s not a demon, Tara thinks, it’s not something that lives here, it’s the place. It’s the garden.
It’s dark and it’s Sunnydale and Tara isn’t afraid.
The place doesn’t speak but she feels the question in the way the grass curls over her fingers as she strips the herbs, careful to take only what she needs. “It’s for a friend,” she says, and the place doesn’t need the words but she speaks them for herself. “Friend,” she repeats, and fixes Riley’s face in her head; kind of lying, she thinks, because he’s not really her friend, any more than Buffy or Xander, but Willow told her what happened with the Initiative and her mother told her, a long time ago, that if you could help, you should. “He was injured. He’s in pain, and I can help him. I want to help him.”
She says, thinks, feels, “Please.”
Blood-coloured flowers blossom from nothing in the grass like stage magic, rabbits from an impossible hat, and are gone before she can touch them. She wants to laugh, or applaud, or offer to stay forever.
“Thank you,” she whispers, gathering the last of the herbs she needs. No coins, no totems to give in return; she bows her head and offers her respect, and her gratitude, and a last flare of red valerian tells her that this is more than enough.
Author: Doyle
Fandom: Buffy
Pairing: Tara gen. Very minor mention of Tara/Willow, but that’s canon for this time period, etc.
Rating: G
Notes: for sappho_wilde for the Fem Gen Ficathon; request was for Tara and herbology. After Restless.
Summary: The taking and receiving part - that, she understands. That, she learned with the ABCs, her mother’s hands around hers around the dirt.
The soil’s good today. She holds a handful in her fist, lets it sift through her fingers onto the bed she’s sown. Her first few weeks at college, Tara went through a phase of reading books on magic, just because she could, now, and she remembers a lot about herbs and hands. Only take with your left hand. Only take with your right. One way means you’re taking from the earth and the other is receiving but the books couldn’t agree and she figured the fairest thing was to assume they were both wrong.
Most of the books made her wince for the trees that died to make them, and sigh for the people learning magic from them, but the taking and receiving part - that, she understands. That, she learned with the ABCs, her mother’s hands around hers around the dirt and her mother’s voice dropped to a whisper, telling her secrets. Goddess, magic, earth.
Don’t tell your father.
Fennel and foxgloves growing among the daisies and dandelions, in the neglected beds that Daddy and Donny never noticed. Weeds, Daddy said, so if he asked what they were doing in the garden Mom said weeding and it wasn’t a lie.
You have to give something back, Tara. So it’s an exchange, not just you taking what you need. A coin (she loves the mingled smell of copper and earth, even now, even after watching them put her mother in the ground) or just a thank you.
She went back to the college Wicca group the week they talked about herbs. One of the groups, anyway - by this time they’d schismed, bake sales to one side, cauldrons to the other, with a few confused hold-outs floating between the two. Tara sat in the circle and listened to the nine sacred steps of herb-gathering explained by a girl who had said, a month ago, that magic was metaphorical. Step four was abstaining from sex for a week. Willow laughed out loud and Tara had to cough to cover her giggles and she was so sure that everyone would look at them and know. They left before step five, imaginary homework and imaginary headache winning over the group’s imaginary rules.
Step four’s not a problem tonight. Willow’s been out of town a week, vacation with the parents who have finally remembered they have a daughter. Tara’s surprised to find that she can breathe without her. She hopes (sometimes, when Willow races the magic, goes too fast and doesn’t stop to think of the consequences, she doubts) her mother would like Willow.
Midsummer sunset, far from home, her mother’s gone, now - but closer, here, than she feels anywhere else in Sunnydale. Done for the day, Tara sits back on her heels, closes her eyes. She’d be shy if she thought anyone could see her like this, sitting in the dirt and about to talk to herself, but the garden is secluded. The closest building’s the elementary school and that’s closed for the summer. She wonders whether Sunnydale kids play different to those anywhere else, whether they have vampire games, pretend stakes.
It’s quiet and peaceful and she could hide for a long time here. Sometimes she thinks that if she hadn’t found Willow she would have crawled into the centre of this tiny space of herbs, let the grass grow over her.
“I was thinking about my mother,” she says to nobody, to the air. Easier than talking to people and Tara doesn’t hide behind her hair and wish herself somewhere else, doesn’t stammer, doesn’t trip over the difference between what she means to say and what’s coming from her mouth. “She used to make tea - she was sick, she got… headaches, I remember…” Her mother, holding her head in both hands and twisting on the bed with a noiseless scream of pain; her father, raging about demons; Tara takes a deep breath. Two. “She said the tea helped. In the beginning, anyway. St. John’s Wort and linden flowers, valerian, juniper berries.” She holds the memory for a moment, the colour, the smell; the first taste, slight bitterness giving way to the sweet infusion across her lips.
There’s a tingle at the base of her spine, like the memory of an ice cube held there. The eyebright by her knee stirs in a sudden breeze.
Tara doesn’t ask “Can you hear me?” Doesn’t even think it. The thing that lives in this place - demon or spirit or something she’d never thought of - it’s beyond words. She keeps her eyes closed, keeps remembering her mother’s tea, and now she pictures herself cradling the memory in her hands. Offering it.
When she opens her eyes again, it’s dark, and she’s alone.
And she isn’t.
It’s not a demon, Tara thinks, it’s not something that lives here, it’s the place. It’s the garden.
It’s dark and it’s Sunnydale and Tara isn’t afraid.
The place doesn’t speak but she feels the question in the way the grass curls over her fingers as she strips the herbs, careful to take only what she needs. “It’s for a friend,” she says, and the place doesn’t need the words but she speaks them for herself. “Friend,” she repeats, and fixes Riley’s face in her head; kind of lying, she thinks, because he’s not really her friend, any more than Buffy or Xander, but Willow told her what happened with the Initiative and her mother told her, a long time ago, that if you could help, you should. “He was injured. He’s in pain, and I can help him. I want to help him.”
She says, thinks, feels, “Please.”
Blood-coloured flowers blossom from nothing in the grass like stage magic, rabbits from an impossible hat, and are gone before she can touch them. She wants to laugh, or applaud, or offer to stay forever.
“Thank you,” she whispers, gathering the last of the herbs she needs. No coins, no totems to give in return; she bows her head and offers her respect, and her gratitude, and a last flare of red valerian tells her that this is more than enough.