[fic] copper and axinite (3b/4)
fic: copper and axinite: autumn (3b/4)
fandom: btvs/teenwolf/tmi
characters: allison/lydia; dawn summers, clary fray, stiles/lydia-friendship, clary/simon-friendship
word count: 2700
setting: set a few years before the events of destiny came a calling; witches-au allison thinks she'll never find her familiar... Lydia always knew that she was different from her family and friends, she just didn't know how much...
a/n: I feel like I wanted more from this chapter... but I'm about to leave on holiday for four days and won't have any writing time. So here it is for now. Some MOST of the questions raised in this segment will be answered later in destiny
[ chapter 1: summer]
[ chapter 2: spring]
[ chapter 3a: autumn]
For two weeks, Lydia met Allison in that diner and over pancakes (or waffles or ‘crepes’ or French toast) they talked about pretty much nothing at all. Outside, the leaves deepened into dark reds and oranges and yellows, the entire world alight like fire. Stiles became King of Clary’s world, clearly disconcerting poor little Simon, and kept her occupied while the rest of them pretended that this wasn’t the strangest courtship that had ever transpired.
Stiles teased them that maybe Tristan and Isolde had a harder time of it, maybe and then began quoting passages in Middle English until Clary tackled him and dragged him back outside into the wind and the turning season. For all that they were sitting in that booth pretending that time wasn’t passing them by, that they didn’t have much time left, the landscape just over the rims of their coffee mugs told them differently.
Two weeks where nothing much happened at all. They didn’t discuss witchcraft or magic or mountain lions or archery. Allison talked about being a gymnast when she was younger. Lydia told her about being prom queen. Allison shared her favorite quote and Lydia showed her blurry images on her phone of her favorite pieces of art.
They all agreed to give them some time, to let them adjust. But Lydia couldn’t help but feel as though they were racing against the tide.
Outside, the wind carried the season by their window. Always flowing, always shifting; the colors a riot to Lydia’s senses. The growing coolness seemingly a potent of something they weren’t ready for.
September 17, 1992
My precious Dawn,
Next week is your first birthday. I wish I could apologize for not being there, but I’m afraid by the time you are old enough to understand this letter, I will have missed far too many birthdays for it to matter much anymore. I haven’t seen you in a long time - longer than I intended. But today! Today is a very special day, my darling. Today I learned that you will soon have a little sister to play with and learn with and protect. (Her father thinks I am silly to know so early that she is a girl. But I know.)
Your father and grandmother will watch over you while I am gone. I promise to hold you in my arms soon.
I hope we read this letter together someday, with your sister in my lap and you at my arm in your grandmother’s cozy kitchen. I know you are too young to promise such a thing, but please promise me to always hope, even if everything is telling you to give up. Always hope that it can get better.
Peter, he says that it is foolish to write letters to a baby still in her cradle. Says I will not see you grow old, so it doesn’t matter what wild imaginings I have in my head. But I can hope, darling. And so I will continue to do so. Until there is nothing left. I will hope.
See you soon,
Mom.
December 20, 1992
My precious Dawn,
I love you so much. I’m so sorry to miss Winter Solstice with you and your grandmother. I will be home soon, I promise.
Mom
February 3, 1993
Mom,
Peter and I are on our way home. We’ll part ways in … well. He won’t be coming back with me, that’s the important thing. He says this was only the beginning. I hope we did the right thing, mom. I’m terrified for my girls. Nothing we do can keep them safe, just delay the inevitable.
I know you are angry with me, for Dawn, for her father, for leaving her with you when she was so young. I’m sorry for not being the daughter you wanted. The pacifist greenthumb who would ignore the signs. I understand, mother, because that’s all I want for my girls, now. I want nothing more than for this danger to pass and to never have felt this ache of fear for their safety.
I’ll be home soon, mother.
I love you,
Rebecca
March 20, 1994
Allison my silver girl,
You were born yesterday and are just now sleeping beside me in your crib. Dawn will snuggle closer to you when you begin to reach out or whimper.
You will both be strong, you will soon have no need for me.
I love that about you. I hate that about you. I wish you were normal daughters, sickly and fussy and in need of my constant care. In the few short hours since you drew your first breath, you have already proven that I need you far more than you will ever need me.
What do I know? I’ve been a mother just over a year and left for most of that time to fight a war that your father said was necessary. Maybe you will need me someday, but I know I won’t be there.
I’m sorry for that.
Remember that you have the strength you need and that your sister will reach out her hand when you need it.
That’s all I can offer you, my special silver girl.
Love,
Mom
June 17, 1994
Allison my silver girl,
You are every day a living reminder of the father that you shouldn’t have. You have his smile, his humor, his spirit. “Mom,” you will say, laughing at me as you read this. “I was only two months old when you wrote this, how can you know?” Because I can see you.
Someday there will be another who will see everything you can be, just as I can. Just as Peter can. And you will turn them away in fear.
I won’t be there to hold your hand. And you are so like Peter, you will be so stubborn.
Listen to your heart, little one. You will overestimate your own strength and fall.
I’m sorry to be so cryptic, I wish I could give you more but… maybe one day. Listen for my words in your ear, they will come.
Love,
Mom
June 20, 1994
Rebecca, I received your message. You should not tax yourself so over such a silly thing. It is better that I stay away. Let your husband be the father that I cannot. I can only ensure your safety if I stay away.
Peter
ps - I should not, and yet I do. I cannot, and yet it is all I can do. Dream of me and I will hold you there
August 29, 1994
Rebecca, do not be foolish. I should not have to resort to such ridiculous means to contact you. Standard mail is so ridiculously unreliable. Do not come. I will take care of it.
Peter
May 13, 1995
Rebecca,
It is done.
Peter
ps - do not dream, wait until it is safe
A week of breakfast dates passed, blowing by like a reckless windstorm. Dawn feared what would be left in the wake of this, this not-talking, not-saying, not-knowing. There was only one direction to go in the aftermath of this and it wasn’t anywhere they were willing to go. The house was littered with Clary’s drawings, strange rune designs and twisting wards. Something was coming, but Dawn couldn’t help feeling it had been there all along, under the floorboards, tucked away beneath their beds where they were unwilling to look.
Messages whispered on the winds tugged at her hair and her memory, waiting impatiently for someone to take note.
And this time, if they chose not to listen, things were going to get a whole lot messier than a teenage girl turning into a mountain lion.
Which was a fucked up gage of relativity.
August 3, 1998
My darling girls,
Your sister is going to be here any day now and I feel like I need to prepare you somehow, for what’s to come, so that you can help her. But you are too young still. So innocent, always.
Peter says that you will be given much help when you need it, but I fear it will be hardest for your sister. Dawn, already you are such a treasure. Your greenthumb gives your grandmother so much pleasure and hope. You are gentle and kind and … so silly and cute. Allison, you are special. Not just to me, but to the world and to your father. I am sorry you will never meet him. You are strong and I see you lead your elder sister with a confidence that gives me so much hope. You will need it.
Care for your sister, girls. She will need your kindness and your strength.
Care for each other. You are strongest together.
I love you so much,
Mom
August 15, 1998
Rebecca,
Congratulations are in order, I suspect.
Please do not seek me out. I will find you when the time is right.
The winds are blowing.
Peter
ps - I am sorry
January 23, 2003
My darling girls,
I love you so much.
I suspect you will doubt that shortly. I am sorry for that. I must leave. I will tell you it is to protect you and you will resent that. In truth, it is not to protect you. It is because I am not strong enough to do what must truly be done, and you are too young to do it in my stead.
Let me be to you as an ancient god, let me tie up the storm into a magical bag to be opened only when you are ready to bend or fight the winds as you see fit. Let you resent me, let you judge me, let you hate me. Let me fight in your name the only way I know how.
Peter says I was always meant to be a mother but never meant to be yours. As much as I want to fight him and stay tucked away with you forever, I cannot. It is not in my nature. I will not apologize for that. Peter says a lot of nonsense; I think you would all love to tease him for his ridiculously stiff upper lip. You will never meet him. For that, I am glad. There are some things that parents must keep from their children.
Goodbye,
Mom
January 23, 2003
Mother,
In my dream, it was time. And Peter agrees.
We have talked about this before. I’m sorry for leaving in the middle of the night - but we both know you would have tried to talk me out of it. Tell… tell the girls I will be home as soon as I can. I can wish. You can pray to your goddess. And they can hope.
Mother, is it true that we cannot fight destiny? If so, how did Allison come to be? Am I chasing a path already laid out for me, or am I forging a new one?
Mother… Take care of my girls. When they are old enough to understand, please… help them remember me.
Your loving daughter, Rebecca
[never opened]
January 23, 2003
Kris
I love you very much. I always have and I always will… but I have to leave. Mother does not know where, so don’t ask. And yes, I am with Allison’s father - for that, I’m sorry.
Our daughters are the two most precious gifts you could have ever given me, and I will cherish them in my heart every day of my life. I love you.
I’m so sorry.
Rebecca
Clary is always drawing. There is never a moment when she doesn’t have a pencil in her hand, smooth lines appearing on what was once empty. Sometimes, her hands trace lines and it is less like she is making something new and more like exposing something that was already there. Like she should have already seen it. Like she knew it all along.
The pictures came to her unbidden, sometimes surprising her as she flipped back through her notepad.
She tried once to stop altogether; put her pencils and papers far away, push it all away. She told herself that she only started drawing again because she wanted to (and not because she woke up to the image of an eye scratched into her arm).
She never mentioned to her sisters that Lydia’s face had been littered through her books for years. They didn’t touch her things without her permission.
And the night the girl with burning eyes appeared on their porch she burned every image there was. (She missed the one of a wildcat lying on a rock under the sun. She never thought to put the two things together. She never thought one sketch of a cat drawn without seeing would be something she’d need to hide.)
September 26, 2004
Dawn,
I had truly hoped to be home by now. To hold you in my arms and see your smiling face and your skinned knees… I won’t be back, I think. Peter tells me that’s how it has to be, but I have so much to tell you, so much to prepare you for.
Take care of your sisters,
Mom
December 13, 2004
My darling girls,
I hope you are well! Peter and I are constantly on the move these days, sight-seeing and adventuring. Last month I went ziplining for the first time and screamed my head off. Someday I will bring you here, feed you this delicious food and swim with you in the ocean.
I love you,
Mom
May 30, 2005
My darling girls,
Lean on each other while I am gone. I’m sorry that I have missed so much. I’m trying to keep you safe. I promise I will keep you safe as long as I can.
Love,
Mom
November 23, 2006
Mother,
Here’s a little money to take the girls on vacation or buy them new school clothes. Peter is looking into setting up a college fund for them but, it’s hard to find the right channels. I can’t have anyone tracing them through us. I won’t be in contact for a while.
Love,
Rebecca
February 12, 2008
Allison,
I have tried so hard, in my letters and presents, never to set you apart from the others. You are all three special, essential women to the world. You are all important.
But Allison, there is something so essential to you, to your existence… I’m sorry that I cannot tell you the truth of who you are, you must discover that for yourself. Dawn has a way with books, her earth magic will guide you. And someone else. Someone soon. You won’t want to trust them, but please let yourself be vulnerable. My proud, brave girl. You are so strong. Too strong for your own good. Once I caught you in the backyard, you’d sprained your wrist and were willing yourself not to cry. You were only five years old. Find someone to hold your hand, my darling. Find a way to let someone else be strong with you.
I love you. Everything I have done has been for you and your sisters.
Mom
Two weeks of diner breakfasts that had Allison’s dimples showing even after a long day at work and Dawn had almost forgotten the reason for the girl with copper hair that was sinking her self into Allison’s life.
She was out in the garden, autumn was beginning to turn into winter, but that was no excuse not to check in with her plants, with the earth, with their home. In a clump of grass she found an old key. Her sisters teased her when she told them that the flowers and her herbs whispered in her ear. That day, she didn’t stop to find them and explain to them that a pumpkin had told her a secret.
She just took it.
Walked up the stairs to her room - her mother’s old room - went to the old trunk at the foot of her bed, and unlocked it for the first time since her mother’s disappearance so long ago.
And found more questions than answers.
December 30, 2010
Dawn,
I hid the key in your garden. It will find you when you are ready. Look in the grimoire. I know you girls have decided to swear off magic, but you may find that you have no other choice.
The girl looking for Allison - trust her. I told your mother not to trust Peter and fighting against me cost too much.
Love,
Grams
fandom: btvs/teenwolf/tmi
characters: allison/lydia; dawn summers, clary fray, stiles/lydia-friendship, clary/simon-friendship
word count: 2700
setting: set a few years before the events of destiny came a calling; witches-au allison thinks she'll never find her familiar... Lydia always knew that she was different from her family and friends, she just didn't know how much...
a/n: I feel like I wanted more from this chapter... but I'm about to leave on holiday for four days and won't have any writing time. So here it is for now. Some MOST of the questions raised in this segment will be answered later in destiny
[ chapter 1: summer]
[ chapter 2: spring]
[ chapter 3a: autumn]
For two weeks, Lydia met Allison in that diner and over pancakes (or waffles or ‘crepes’ or French toast) they talked about pretty much nothing at all. Outside, the leaves deepened into dark reds and oranges and yellows, the entire world alight like fire. Stiles became King of Clary’s world, clearly disconcerting poor little Simon, and kept her occupied while the rest of them pretended that this wasn’t the strangest courtship that had ever transpired.
Stiles teased them that maybe Tristan and Isolde had a harder time of it, maybe and then began quoting passages in Middle English until Clary tackled him and dragged him back outside into the wind and the turning season. For all that they were sitting in that booth pretending that time wasn’t passing them by, that they didn’t have much time left, the landscape just over the rims of their coffee mugs told them differently.
Two weeks where nothing much happened at all. They didn’t discuss witchcraft or magic or mountain lions or archery. Allison talked about being a gymnast when she was younger. Lydia told her about being prom queen. Allison shared her favorite quote and Lydia showed her blurry images on her phone of her favorite pieces of art.
They all agreed to give them some time, to let them adjust. But Lydia couldn’t help but feel as though they were racing against the tide.
Outside, the wind carried the season by their window. Always flowing, always shifting; the colors a riot to Lydia’s senses. The growing coolness seemingly a potent of something they weren’t ready for.
September 17, 1992
My precious Dawn,
Next week is your first birthday. I wish I could apologize for not being there, but I’m afraid by the time you are old enough to understand this letter, I will have missed far too many birthdays for it to matter much anymore. I haven’t seen you in a long time - longer than I intended. But today! Today is a very special day, my darling. Today I learned that you will soon have a little sister to play with and learn with and protect. (Her father thinks I am silly to know so early that she is a girl. But I know.)
Your father and grandmother will watch over you while I am gone. I promise to hold you in my arms soon.
I hope we read this letter together someday, with your sister in my lap and you at my arm in your grandmother’s cozy kitchen. I know you are too young to promise such a thing, but please promise me to always hope, even if everything is telling you to give up. Always hope that it can get better.
Peter, he says that it is foolish to write letters to a baby still in her cradle. Says I will not see you grow old, so it doesn’t matter what wild imaginings I have in my head. But I can hope, darling. And so I will continue to do so. Until there is nothing left. I will hope.
See you soon,
Mom.
December 20, 1992
My precious Dawn,
I love you so much. I’m so sorry to miss Winter Solstice with you and your grandmother. I will be home soon, I promise.
Mom
February 3, 1993
Mom,
Peter and I are on our way home. We’ll part ways in … well. He won’t be coming back with me, that’s the important thing. He says this was only the beginning. I hope we did the right thing, mom. I’m terrified for my girls. Nothing we do can keep them safe, just delay the inevitable.
I know you are angry with me, for Dawn, for her father, for leaving her with you when she was so young. I’m sorry for not being the daughter you wanted. The pacifist greenthumb who would ignore the signs. I understand, mother, because that’s all I want for my girls, now. I want nothing more than for this danger to pass and to never have felt this ache of fear for their safety.
I’ll be home soon, mother.
I love you,
Rebecca
March 20, 1994
Allison my silver girl,
You were born yesterday and are just now sleeping beside me in your crib. Dawn will snuggle closer to you when you begin to reach out or whimper.
You will both be strong, you will soon have no need for me.
I love that about you. I hate that about you. I wish you were normal daughters, sickly and fussy and in need of my constant care. In the few short hours since you drew your first breath, you have already proven that I need you far more than you will ever need me.
What do I know? I’ve been a mother just over a year and left for most of that time to fight a war that your father said was necessary. Maybe you will need me someday, but I know I won’t be there.
I’m sorry for that.
Remember that you have the strength you need and that your sister will reach out her hand when you need it.
That’s all I can offer you, my special silver girl.
Love,
Mom
June 17, 1994
Allison my silver girl,
You are every day a living reminder of the father that you shouldn’t have. You have his smile, his humor, his spirit. “Mom,” you will say, laughing at me as you read this. “I was only two months old when you wrote this, how can you know?” Because I can see you.
Someday there will be another who will see everything you can be, just as I can. Just as Peter can. And you will turn them away in fear.
I won’t be there to hold your hand. And you are so like Peter, you will be so stubborn.
Listen to your heart, little one. You will overestimate your own strength and fall.
I’m sorry to be so cryptic, I wish I could give you more but… maybe one day. Listen for my words in your ear, they will come.
Love,
Mom
June 20, 1994
Rebecca, I received your message. You should not tax yourself so over such a silly thing. It is better that I stay away. Let your husband be the father that I cannot. I can only ensure your safety if I stay away.
Peter
ps - I should not, and yet I do. I cannot, and yet it is all I can do. Dream of me and I will hold you there
August 29, 1994
Rebecca, do not be foolish. I should not have to resort to such ridiculous means to contact you. Standard mail is so ridiculously unreliable. Do not come. I will take care of it.
Peter
May 13, 1995
Rebecca,
It is done.
Peter
ps - do not dream, wait until it is safe
A week of breakfast dates passed, blowing by like a reckless windstorm. Dawn feared what would be left in the wake of this, this not-talking, not-saying, not-knowing. There was only one direction to go in the aftermath of this and it wasn’t anywhere they were willing to go. The house was littered with Clary’s drawings, strange rune designs and twisting wards. Something was coming, but Dawn couldn’t help feeling it had been there all along, under the floorboards, tucked away beneath their beds where they were unwilling to look.
Messages whispered on the winds tugged at her hair and her memory, waiting impatiently for someone to take note.
And this time, if they chose not to listen, things were going to get a whole lot messier than a teenage girl turning into a mountain lion.
Which was a fucked up gage of relativity.
August 3, 1998
My darling girls,
Your sister is going to be here any day now and I feel like I need to prepare you somehow, for what’s to come, so that you can help her. But you are too young still. So innocent, always.
Peter says that you will be given much help when you need it, but I fear it will be hardest for your sister. Dawn, already you are such a treasure. Your greenthumb gives your grandmother so much pleasure and hope. You are gentle and kind and … so silly and cute. Allison, you are special. Not just to me, but to the world and to your father. I am sorry you will never meet him. You are strong and I see you lead your elder sister with a confidence that gives me so much hope. You will need it.
Care for your sister, girls. She will need your kindness and your strength.
Care for each other. You are strongest together.
I love you so much,
Mom
August 15, 1998
Rebecca,
Congratulations are in order, I suspect.
Please do not seek me out. I will find you when the time is right.
The winds are blowing.
Peter
ps - I am sorry
January 23, 2003
My darling girls,
I love you so much.
I suspect you will doubt that shortly. I am sorry for that. I must leave. I will tell you it is to protect you and you will resent that. In truth, it is not to protect you. It is because I am not strong enough to do what must truly be done, and you are too young to do it in my stead.
Let me be to you as an ancient god, let me tie up the storm into a magical bag to be opened only when you are ready to bend or fight the winds as you see fit. Let you resent me, let you judge me, let you hate me. Let me fight in your name the only way I know how.
Peter says I was always meant to be a mother but never meant to be yours. As much as I want to fight him and stay tucked away with you forever, I cannot. It is not in my nature. I will not apologize for that. Peter says a lot of nonsense; I think you would all love to tease him for his ridiculously stiff upper lip. You will never meet him. For that, I am glad. There are some things that parents must keep from their children.
Goodbye,
Mom
January 23, 2003
Mother,
In my dream, it was time. And Peter agrees.
We have talked about this before. I’m sorry for leaving in the middle of the night - but we both know you would have tried to talk me out of it. Tell… tell the girls I will be home as soon as I can. I can wish. You can pray to your goddess. And they can hope.
Mother, is it true that we cannot fight destiny? If so, how did Allison come to be? Am I chasing a path already laid out for me, or am I forging a new one?
Mother… Take care of my girls. When they are old enough to understand, please… help them remember me.
Your loving daughter, Rebecca
[never opened]
January 23, 2003
Kris
I love you very much. I always have and I always will… but I have to leave. Mother does not know where, so don’t ask. And yes, I am with Allison’s father - for that, I’m sorry.
Our daughters are the two most precious gifts you could have ever given me, and I will cherish them in my heart every day of my life. I love you.
I’m so sorry.
Rebecca
Clary is always drawing. There is never a moment when she doesn’t have a pencil in her hand, smooth lines appearing on what was once empty. Sometimes, her hands trace lines and it is less like she is making something new and more like exposing something that was already there. Like she should have already seen it. Like she knew it all along.
The pictures came to her unbidden, sometimes surprising her as she flipped back through her notepad.
She tried once to stop altogether; put her pencils and papers far away, push it all away. She told herself that she only started drawing again because she wanted to (and not because she woke up to the image of an eye scratched into her arm).
She never mentioned to her sisters that Lydia’s face had been littered through her books for years. They didn’t touch her things without her permission.
And the night the girl with burning eyes appeared on their porch she burned every image there was. (She missed the one of a wildcat lying on a rock under the sun. She never thought to put the two things together. She never thought one sketch of a cat drawn without seeing would be something she’d need to hide.)
September 26, 2004
Dawn,
I had truly hoped to be home by now. To hold you in my arms and see your smiling face and your skinned knees… I won’t be back, I think. Peter tells me that’s how it has to be, but I have so much to tell you, so much to prepare you for.
Take care of your sisters,
Mom
December 13, 2004
My darling girls,
I hope you are well! Peter and I are constantly on the move these days, sight-seeing and adventuring. Last month I went ziplining for the first time and screamed my head off. Someday I will bring you here, feed you this delicious food and swim with you in the ocean.
I love you,
Mom
May 30, 2005
My darling girls,
Lean on each other while I am gone. I’m sorry that I have missed so much. I’m trying to keep you safe. I promise I will keep you safe as long as I can.
Love,
Mom
November 23, 2006
Mother,
Here’s a little money to take the girls on vacation or buy them new school clothes. Peter is looking into setting up a college fund for them but, it’s hard to find the right channels. I can’t have anyone tracing them through us. I won’t be in contact for a while.
Love,
Rebecca
February 12, 2008
Allison,
I have tried so hard, in my letters and presents, never to set you apart from the others. You are all three special, essential women to the world. You are all important.
But Allison, there is something so essential to you, to your existence… I’m sorry that I cannot tell you the truth of who you are, you must discover that for yourself. Dawn has a way with books, her earth magic will guide you. And someone else. Someone soon. You won’t want to trust them, but please let yourself be vulnerable. My proud, brave girl. You are so strong. Too strong for your own good. Once I caught you in the backyard, you’d sprained your wrist and were willing yourself not to cry. You were only five years old. Find someone to hold your hand, my darling. Find a way to let someone else be strong with you.
I love you. Everything I have done has been for you and your sisters.
Mom
Two weeks of diner breakfasts that had Allison’s dimples showing even after a long day at work and Dawn had almost forgotten the reason for the girl with copper hair that was sinking her self into Allison’s life.
She was out in the garden, autumn was beginning to turn into winter, but that was no excuse not to check in with her plants, with the earth, with their home. In a clump of grass she found an old key. Her sisters teased her when she told them that the flowers and her herbs whispered in her ear. That day, she didn’t stop to find them and explain to them that a pumpkin had told her a secret.
She just took it.
Walked up the stairs to her room - her mother’s old room - went to the old trunk at the foot of her bed, and unlocked it for the first time since her mother’s disappearance so long ago.
And found more questions than answers.
December 30, 2010
Dawn,
I hid the key in your garden. It will find you when you are ready. Look in the grimoire. I know you girls have decided to swear off magic, but you may find that you have no other choice.
The girl looking for Allison - trust her. I told your mother not to trust Peter and fighting against me cost too much.
Love,
Grams