Awakening
By miarath
(Demon in my view / Shattered Mirror)
So, what really happened to Caryn Smoke after she healed Jessica - and what has to do with her line's name?
Every name has its origin as every myth contains a piece of truth.
So, what if said myth came alive to haunt you?
Sometimes archenemies have to work together to survive; but can they really do that?
Disclaimer:
The characters and all other things you recognize from the books, belong to Amelia Atwater-Rhodes or to the creatores of Forever Knight (I know it's not much but it's there never the less.)
I did this just for fun, not for any profit.
Discovery
-----------------------
At the beginning there was discovery.
Discovery of change, and change was everything it ever was.
-
Caryn felt numb. She was almost home, but even now she felt like being in a daze. Everything seemed so unreal to her. Last night, she'd fought her hardest fight. She would have lost it, too, if not for him. "He had been willing to die for her," she thought and shook her head. "To risqué everything – just for love." It was the exact opposite she had been taught her whole life.
She walked slowly through their garden. She gave it a tired look. The maple trees seemed as high as yesterday; and it still smelled of roses and old trees.
Something definitely had been changed inside of her. She did not know what exactly had changed. That was truly scared her: the not knowing. "I hope my mother can forgive me for this," she thought. She could see the main front of their house. It was a simple white house; it looked just like the other ones in their neighbourhood. It had two stories and a red roof; the latter shone in a lovely red in the sun. It was, of course, only a temporary home like all the other ones have been. She shivered slightly. "Home at last, but will it be my home, tomorrow?"
Caryn looked up, the sun was almost at its zenith. It was already midday; it felt unreal. She'd had been sleeping longer than she had thought. Now, the lights were bright; it was as if nothing had happened. "Shouldn't there be some dark clouds?" She sighed tiredly. Last night had her really exhausted.
She had trouble handling the keys, but they kept slipping from her fingers; she sighed. She tried again.
Finely the door creaked open. Caryn sighed in relief, putting the keys back into her pocket.
Hasana leaned next to the doorframe, looking her over. She frowned.
"Child," she said, slowly, "what has happened? Are you all right?" She leaned closer, concern flashing in her eyes. There were shadows under her eyes and her hair looked ruffled.
"Oh, please forgive me. Please say that you'll forgive me?" Caryn pleaded and buried her head in her mothers embrace.
"Shh, child calm down, please? Everything will be all right." Hasana whispered, stroking her daughter's hair. Hasana tried to be strong, but there were still slight trembles in her voice.
"You look terrible child. You have to be hungry. Sit down here. I'm going to fix you something to eat." Hasana led her to the kitchen, to their table. She whirled around to fetch something to eat.
"I'm really not that hungry, mother." Caryn sighed. It was typical for her mother to react like this, even if it would've been world's end. Caryn gave in, for her mother's sake; she really didn't feel like eating right now. There was nothing she could do.
"You don't believe that, do you?" Hasana insisted, turning around to face her.
Caryn didn't answer. She gave her mother a blank glance. Eventually she shook her head.
"No, you're right." She acknowledged. "I need to eat." She had done a lot of magic last night and now she had to its price. She needed to refill her magic energy.
Hasana hurried to make breakfast, hot cacao and some toast with strawberry jam.
"Oops, sorry." She almost dropped the mug filled with cacao. "That would have been a fine mess."
"Here you are." Hasana smiled; she put the mug on the table.
"Thank you. But I really have to tell --" Caryn replied, her voice rising a pitch higher.
"You'll tell me later. So, do me the favour and eat your meal?" Hasana demanded.
"Okay." Caryn finally agreed to do as her mother wished and slumped down on the nearest chair.
"Now, that's my girl. Enjoy." Hasana smiled encouraging her daughter to calm down. Well, Hasana needed to calm down as much as Caryn did, maybe more so. So, she, too, slumped down onto a near by chair.
Caryn took a bite of her toast; the jam tasted juicy. She took another bite. She really was hungry. She ate in silence. Eating her meal seemed to have calmed her down, remarkable.
"Now, tell me what happened, please?" Her mother asked her, who sat in front of her. Hasana wore the same blue dress like yesterday; it looked crumpled. A stark contrast to the sunny weather outside, it was.
"Everything is as it ever was, nothing changed," Caryn thought, "but that's a lie, isn't it?"
"Well, it's about Jessica, you know?" She began, but stopped not knowing how to explain the things happened the night.
"The girl we tried to save." Hasana remembered. "What happened to her?"
"Fala did, mother. She almost killed her." Caryn explained shivering; reliving the moments when she saw what Fala had done to Jessica. No, there had been no other way for her but to help Jessica.
"Almost?" Her mother questioned. Her voice was low, showing her disbelief clearly. Caryn was their best healer, since Monica. Caryn was a very good healer; something Hasana was proud of.
"I tried to heal her," Caryn said, "I simply couldn't act any other way, mother." She apologized.
"You tried, which means you've failed?" Hasana sounded disappointed, but another part of her was more than worried. Fala wasn't known to leave her victims alive. Jessica had to have been more dead than alive at the time Caryn started her healing. Any other Witch would have been dead by now – burned out, just as Monica burned out, while bringing Jessica's mother back to life.
"No, I succeeded, but Fala had taken almost all of her blood." Caryn denied.
"So, what did happen?" Hasana could see the hints of a vampiric aura in her daughter's aura. There were very few things what could have caused it. "Oh, what have you done?" Hasana wondered.
"Oh, but I think I know what you've done, daughter. There'll be simply no other way, you could've done something like this and still be alive." She fought down shivers of dread at this thought.
"Aubrey helped me healing her." She told finely, almost whispering, her voice barely to be heard.
"How could you? You knew the dangers and you did it anyway." Hasana was shaken by her daughter's action, but on the other hand felt proud about her braveness. "But what have we Smokes been anything but rebels?" She sighed with defeat. What done was done and could not be undone.
"You know, you will have to face the consequences for your actions." Hasana said, her voice sounding grim and worried.
"I know mother…" Caryn acknowledged. "…it scares me."
"It should child." They heard a voice from behind. It was Dominique Vida. Dominique had listened to her whole story and she wasn't pleased, no, not at all.
"You know the punishment of associating with the enemy, do you?"
"I haven't done such a thing." Caryn said with traces of fear and anger in her voice now. Fear of what Dominique would be going to do to her and anger at her arrogance and coldness. Sometimes the Vida hunter looked much colder than any vampire Caryn ever had seen. "Who is Dominique to judge me? She's not even one of my line. She has no right to do so."
"Yes, you did. Do you deny using a vampires might to heal Jessica?" Questioned Dominique, getting even angrier; she was furious. "Have you not?"
"I had no choice. I am a healer. What should I have done, let her die? Without trying to help her?" She argued. It had been instinct: there was no way in hell she could've acted differently. Caryn's healer instincts run deep, too deep to ignore.
"I would." Dominique said icily.
"I bet you would!" She snorted. Was that sarcasm from a Smoke witch? But Caryn never felt so angry in her life. "No," Caryn thought, "this isn't right." She was feeling weird. "Why is it so hot in here? It's like I'm burning with fever." She trembled under the heat.
Hasana had been watching this dispute for a while. A human mother might have interfered, but Hasana was a witch. Dominique Vida was their leader; it was her right to enforce their laws.
"Things were done differently among our kind," she thought, but now she was scared. Her daughter's aura had changed, again. "There are spots of orange now, damn." Hasana cursed silently.
"It can't be happening, not after almost more than two centuries." Hasana thought, while sadness dripped into her accompanied with panic. This could easily turn into disaster, if it was, what she feared it was.
"But how? There had not been one in centuries… We lost it. It's impossible … and still it's there…" Hasana shivered but her thoughts were spinning and spinning.
"We thought it had ceased to exist, forever, but now I'm not that sure any more. Could it be, that it only became recessive? How do we handle a power, we hardly know any more? None of us has any experience with it." Hasana felt her panic rising to full force.
"Stop it! This isn't necessary." Hasana raised her voice up to a pitch just under a yell to reach Dominique. "Leave her alone, Dominique." Hasana knew that she had to intervene or something horrible would happen. When a witch gained a new power, be it in her puberty or later, it was always dangerous.
"Hasana, your daughter betrayed us. And look at her what it had brought her in. Her healing powers are tainted. And why? All because she tried to heal a girl who'd decided to became a vampire anyway." Dominique clearly didn't understand why Hasana was trying to stop their argument. To Dominique Hasana was only trying to save her daughter.
"Dominique, how are you to judge her? You haven't been in her place. She did only what she was supposed to do. She's a healer. It's not her fault." Hasana tried to break through Dominique's stubbornness, not with much success.
"My mother is right, I am a healer and not a hunter. And I never will be." Caryn said proudly. She had always felt uncomfortable in Dominique's company, to say the least.
"You! You are unworthy to be called a witch. I should strip you of your powers right now. It's only a shame to lose these strong healing powers of yours. Maybe you learn your lesson after living a few weeks without your powers." Shouted Dominique in a fit of rage.
"What is she doing? No, this can't be happening…. " Caryn thought in panic.
"No, Dominique, please stop now. Now it's not to late, so please stop." Hasana begged her to let Caryn go. "You bloody fool, you are going to get us all killed, if you go any further!" She shouted finely.
"What? Why?" Dominique was shocked. Hasana had never spoken to her in this tone before. Hasana doesn't curse. So, something terrible had to be wrong, but what?
"Can't you see it?" Hasana pointed at Caryn. "Look at her, look at her aura!"
Dominique did look at Caryn, but all she could see was an aura tainted by vampiric powers. There where also bits and pieces of orange and yellow there, almost like something was burning. But Dominique was a hunter not a scholar. She had little knowledge of ancient witch powers, which were not Vida. So, she didn't recognize the danger, which originated from those fiery spots in Caryn's aura. She assumed they were there because of the taint, too.
"It's tainted as I said before, Hasana." Dominique stated as a matter of fact. "She has to be punished." With these words Dominique turned back to Caryn and reached out to bind her powers.
Dominique never got close to her target. She was intercepted before she could touch Caryn.
The ancient powers in Caryn had recognized the threat, which originated from Dominique. They rose in order to defend Caryn. Dominique's powers were met by flames of nearly unbelievable raw power. "By the gods!" she thought, while trying not to bend under the pressure. Dominique was frightened, for once. Strong Vida power met raw power of an unknown kind. She rarely managed to defend herself against Caryn.
Caryn was also frightened; she was scared to death. "Is that me, who is doing this? Have to stop it." She thought in despair. As suddenly the flames appeared, so they were gone.
Leaving three scared and confused witches and a patch of scorched floor behind.
"Caryn, come with me." Hasana took her daughter upstairs to her room. She has to calm down. It is indispensable if we want to stay alive trough this.
Dominique was still in shock so she didn't interfere. "Hasana had known. She'd tried to warn me but I was too blind to see." She felt ashamed.
"Mother, what is happening to me?" Caryn asked her mother; she was trembling.
"What have I done? I almost killed her! Oh, what have I done? She asked her mother, her despair clinching to her.
"Calm, please daughter. You have to relax, please? " Hasana tried to calm her down as best she could. "This is very important."
"Why?" Caryn was too confused and shocked to really understand her mother's words.
"Do you want to repeat what happened in the kitchen?" Hasana tried to get through her daughter, making her understand how important this was. She had to calm down.
"No, of course I don't, mother." Caryn closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath.
"She knows what's going on." Caryn realized with relief. "You know what's happening to me, don't you?"
"Yes, I am afraid I do. Daughter do you know why our family's name is Smoke?"
"No, but what has it to do with this?"
"Everything daughter, everything. You better sit down since this is a long story."
Caryn sat down on her bed. Hasana took the place next to her.
"We were not always healers. Not in the beginning. There had been a time our line had been more feared by any vampire than the Vida are today. Actually, the Vida of today did not exist then, nor did Smoke." Hasana began her tale. "We were all one line, but we did argue."
"You're going to tell me we were hunters, too?" Caryn swallowed, she could hardly see themselves as hunters.
"Yes and no, but it had been a long time ago. In another time everything had been different, so were we. Because of it there are not many people alive who knew of our family dower. Since it had been long ceased to exist in our people. Or so we thought." Hasana smiled sadly at this.
"You think I have this power?" Caryn asked relieved to hear that at least her mother seemed to know what is happening to her.
"Indeed I do. But let me go on. As I said the knowledge of our power ceased almost as fast as the power itself disappeared. We never gave much thought of why it happened. After all, we are now healers and pacifists, we no longer needed a power, which would mainly aid in combat."
"But what has it to do with our name?"
"Do you remember the figure of speech 'There were is smoke there's fire too.' daughter?"
"Yes I do. Then this power is about fire? Is this why I felt like burning from inside?"
"Yes, it is. In the old times and when I speak of old times I mean like a thousand years ago, we were able to wield fire. But since those times much information had been lost." Hasana said, distraught at this. "It is said to be a gift from the dragons of old."
"Dragons, mother?" Caryn wondered. She, like every other witch, knew the myth about them, but they were myth and nothing more – fairytales.
"Yes, Caryn they were real. Just like many others." Hasana said, frowning slightly. "They are gone now, just like our power or so we thought." She could vividly remember the stories her mother had told to her when she was young; some had been scary as others had been wonderful, but most of it had been real – sometimes too real.
"When our power began to fade we didn't even notice it at first, and since we become healers it lost importance to us, until one day it finely was gone. " Hasana swallowed. "Only that it's not."
"How do we control it? How do 'I' control it? I don't want something like that to happen again."
"I'm not sure daughter; just try to be as relaxed as possible. All I can do is to look up about it in our family archives. Maybe I can find something helpful there, something that will help us to deal with it. But however daughter, I will be there for you. We're together in this." She said determined.
"I love you, mother," she said and embraced her.
Note: I rewrote several passages and got rid of some nasty 'then's where they didn't belong.
Like it? Please review. :-)