Hello everyone! So, this is a very special piece. This was written as a gift to my Beta, ImaginaryEngineer, to go along with the comic she published for Dianakko week. I don't have the words to properly express how amazing she is. I couldn't write half as well as I do now well without her advice, pointers, and dedication. And that's not even touching on how good of a personal friend shes become. So I'm publishing this at her request, and I do hope you all enjoy it.
Link to comic; mikatchudottumblrdotcomslash post/176084859127/entry-for-day-5-dianakko-week-art-credits-to
Now, as this was a surprise for her, she didn't beta for me on this. That role was taken up by the brilliant madiKaldwin! So huge thank you to Madi! It's deeply appreciated!
Burning Through.
Thick fog greeted Bernadette the morning of February 14th, rolling over the countryside and blocking out all but the closest fields and trees. But that was fine. It was a typical morning in England.
She got dressed, tossing a carefully ironed blazer over her dress shirt before pulling on a pair of dress pants. The only thing that didn't match the outfit were her Chuck Taylor High Tops, bright orange with blue laces. Her mother would probably be annoyed with her, but today she couldn't bring herself to wear anything else.
Closing her bedroom door softly, Bernadette turned and walked down the hallway toward the stairs and eventually her mother's study. This time of year was busier that the rest for her, something that Bernadette knew wasn't a coincidence.
It didn't take long for her to descend to the floor below, not when she slid down the banister, hitting the ground gracefully she continued on her way, a tiny smile on her face. That never got old, and it was even better when Mary wasn't scolding her for it. Somehow the woman always knew when she was getting into trouble. Her mother had said that Anna had taught it to her, and Anna had learned it keeping an eye on Okaasan over the years.
Finally, she arrived at a large chestnut door that stood guard between the outside world and her mother's office. She knocked gently but didn't wait for a reply, simply opening the door and walking in. Sure enough, there sat her mother at her large, ornate desk. Papers were neatly stacked in small piles across the space not taken up by her computer or numerous open books.
"Mom…"
Diana didn't look up; she was too focused on what she was doing, seemingly enamored with something on her desktop screen. Sighing, Bernadette strode over and knelt down behind the sleek PC she had set up for her mother. With the tower being on the desk under the monitor, it was easy enough to undo the two screws and pull the cable connecting the two pieces of equipment right out of the back of the tower. She stood up, cable in hand and eyebrows raised. "There."
The old woman in the computer chair sighed before looking up at her daughter. "Bernadette, I really wish you wouldn't do that."
"It's not like you were doing something urgent." Bernadette strode around the desk to her mother's side and leaned against it.
"I was working on a bill to help prevent a magic exclusion zone from ever forming again. There have been rumblings in the House of Lords again. That is urgent."
"Not today it's not. Okaasan wouldn't want you to be cooped up and lonely like this."
"I'm not cooped up. And I'm not lonely."
"Come on Mom, this will be good for you. I don't...I don't want to go alone. Please?" She looked over at her mother, maroon eyes shining.
It didn't take long for Diana to give in, "Alright. Now please, plug my monitor back in."
(~*~*~*~*~)
The car ride out was quiet. Diana sat in the passenger seat of Bernadettes SUV, watching the thick fog through the passenger side window. She knew she could have had Adam drive them, but this somehow felt...better. More private without being more formal. Honestly, it reminded her of the day they had brought Bernadette home. Akko had driven.
"I'm still not sure how I feel about this, Akko."
"Oh come on, Diana! I've never gotten a ticket!"
"You have three speeding tickets. The family lawyer could probably retire after all the work you put him through.
"Oh, those don't count. And besides, why would I put my entire family in danger?" She looked over at Diana and smiled, eyes gleaming with pride and joy. The labor had been incredibly hard on Diana, but Akko had been there holding her hand the whole time, no matter how hard Diana squeezed. And man did she squeeze. Akko had bruises.
It was worth it though, because in the back seat, strapped into the safest car seat money could buy, was a tiny pink bundle sleeping peacefully. A magical miracle both women had decided to name Bernadette, after the grandmother she never got to meet. Diana looked up at Akko, watching her watch their daughter, and suddenly the pain was worth it. She'd never been so happy.
"Hey, Mom?"
Bernadette's soft voice pulled Diana from her thoughts. She turned her head to look at her now grown daughter "Yes dear?"
"Next summer can we—can we take a vacation together? Just you and me, like we used to?"
The older blonde thought it over. "Well, I would have to move some things around, but I think I would like that. Where did you have in mind?"
"Maybe that place we went with Okaasan when I was ten? And she got her head stuck in that crate?"
They both chuckled at the memory.
"Diana look! The hole in this thing is the size of my head! Look!"
Diana, who was trying to calm a crying Bernadette down, groaned to herself and wondered when she had ended up taking two ten year olds out to the boardwalk rather than one and her wife. "Akko, so help me if I turn around and your head is in that crate…"
"Uh...Diana?" Akkos voice was muffled, and there was an edge of panic in it. Diana didn't need to turn around to know what was happening. Not when Bernadette sniffled and started to giggle. "Um...so…"
"Let me guess, your head is now trapped inside a wooden crate."
"...Maybe?"
The blonde stood, holding on to Bernadette's hand, and turn to see Akko with a wooden crate on her head. "Akko what did I just tell you?"
"Stop talking to the fish?"
Diana pinched the bridge of her nose. "And?"
"If you ever see me holding our daughter over the railing of the boardwalk again you'll do illegal things to me?" Akko didn't have to see Diana's face to know she was angry. But she heard Bernadette giggle, and that made a night in the dog house worth it.
"Atsuko Kagari-Cavendish…"
"Not to stick my head in the crate."
"And what did you just do?"
"Stick my head in the crate."
"Bernadette, what happens when you don't listen to mommy all day and act bad?"
The little girl giggled. "Bed without supper!"
Diana wished she could see the look on her wife's face.
"What? Oh come on Diana, don't do that! Please. I'm hungry and I've been looking forward to Jim's Fish and Chips all week and that's so not fair!"
She started to wander around a bit, hands out like she was trying to grab Diana. It was all well and good, right up until she got turned around and walked into the railing, and somehow or other, in typical Akko fashion, fell over and into the waters below.
"AKKO!" Diana ran to the edge, looking over for any signs of her girlfriend. There were some bubbles, followed by wood from the apparently broken crate, and then nothing. The seconds ticked by, and Diana was just pulling out her wand when Akko's crate free head broke the surface.
She used a hand to brush the hair out of her face before looking up and saying, "Diana, guess what! My head hit a rock and broke the crate. And guess what else! I saw Professor Pisces! She says she's on a Sabbatical and said to say hello!" She smiled a huge, dorky smile and Diana sighed in relief.
Bernadette, meanwhile, giggled. "Okaasan is silly Mommy!"
Diana smiled and picked her daughter up. "Yes, she is."
An older Bernadette chuckled again. "You got so mad! And you know, I always did like Professor Pisces. Out of all of the professors, she was the only one who never said I looked like you. She always said I looked like Okaasan."
Diana nodded. "You do have her eyes. And her smile."
"That's funny. Okaasan said I have your smile."
Typical Akko. Diana leaned back in the seat and turned to look back out the window.
It took a bit, but Diana managed to will the tears away. However, it didn't help things when they slowed and turned down the path just a few miles down the road from the estate. The trees, hardly visible through the fog, where bare and gloomy; it reminded her of when they took a trip out to see her mother's grave.
The day was clear, the warm winter sun shining over head, burning off the fog and bringing the promise of a warm day, and with that, the promise of spring.
Diana led the way through the wood to the burial ground of her ancestors, Akko and Bernadette following behind her. They passed through an ornate metal archway, but there was nothing on the other side—just more trees.
Young Bernadette looked around. "Mom, I don't get it."
"Look under the trees, do you see the headstones?"
She looked and sure enough, there they were. Every tree had one.
"As we grow old, we gradually begin to return to the earth. The more powerful the witch, the longer the process takes. After we move on and are buried, our bodies change and come back as a tree."
"So, witches become trees. The power thing though, is that why Beatrix lived so long?"
"Correct. The more powerful and magically inclined the witch, the longer she lives. Barring illness and that sort of thing. When the time comes I'll take you to see her tree."
Bernadette walked away from her, the fourteen-year-old carefully making her way to a tree. Hesitantly, she reached out and touched the bark. Despite the cold winter air, the bark was warm and the tree almost seemed to pulse with energy of some sort.
"Wait...So does that mean…?"
Diana walked over to her daughter and placed her hand next to Bernadette. " Bernadette, this is your great-great-great-great grandmother, Elizabeth."
The young woman looked up the tree, eyes huge, and then turned to face the grove. "The whole family…"
"Is buried here. With the exception of Beatrix." Diana smiled at the look of wonderment on her daughter's face. She remembered similar feelings when her mother had taken her here. She had been younger than her daughter, but her mother, knowing her time was short, had wanted to show her before she passed.
"Wait… Mom, why isn't Beatrix here?"
"Well…" Diana didn't want to overwhelm her daughter, but Akko stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder, nodding.
"She can handle it. Tell her."
The older blonde nodded. "Beatrix is buried beneath the manor, deep in the catacombs. The only time she can be reached is during the Venusian Eclipse, when a new head of the estate may pledge themselves to her and the house."
"Oh. Is that the ceremony you and Okaasan where in when you said you realized you liked her?"
The question was innocent, but Diana blushed nonetheless. "Ah, yes. That would be the one."
"Cool. Where's grandma's grave?"
She started to walk off, Diana and Akko following closely behind her.
As they walked, Akko reached over and took Diana's hand, pulling her close so she could kiss her cheek.
"I love you," she said.
Even after all this time, Diana still blushed prettily. "I love you, too."
Akko and Diana let their daughter wander ahead of them a bit, looking at the trees. They were every size and shape imaginable, mostly yew, but there were oak and maple as well—even the occasional spruce or pine. She did notice as they went along that the trees started to get smaller; soon she was walking up a large hill with a grass covered top. She looked back to her mother, confused.
Diana crested the hill and stepped onto the grass. "Its an enchantment I placed here years ago. Mother always loved the spring."
Bernadette looked around and walked further toward the middle, turning slowly to take in the beautiful view. Even though it was winter outside the circle, the view was breathtaking. Forest as far as the eye could see on two sides, and fog covered mountains on the other two.
After a few seconds of revolving, Bernadette noticed for the first time a white tombstone in the center of the circle, and just behind it, a young tree not quite five feet tall. Unlike the other trees, trapped in the winter cold, this one had leaves that were a rich green, like the color of a cut emerald. The young woman didn't need to ask—she knew who this was.
Walking over slowly, she knelt and reached out gently only to pause, her hand a hair's breadth away from the bark of the smaller trunk. The world was silent, young Bernadette's heart was hammering, and she found she was too nervous to reach out and touch the tree. She simply knelt in the grass, her hand outstretched.
And then there was a hand on her shoulder, and her mother was kneeling down next to her, reaching out and placing her hand on her daughter's. They looked at each other a moment before Diana gently pushed Bernadette's hand to the trunk. "Bernadette, this is your grandmother."
Her soft voice seemed to melt the fear away like morning sun burning through the fog and Bernadette finally smiled. "H-hey grandma…"
The hike up the hill always seemed to get just a little bit longer every time Diana went; however, it was worth it. She walked behind her daughter, noticing for the first time the shoes she opted to wear. Part of her wanted to say something, but the other half—the part that knew Akko had had a pair in reverse colors—decided to let it go. Today, she would let it slide.
They crested the hill, both pausing to take in their surroundings. Or what they could see. The fog was thick, making it impossible to really see past their immediate surroundings. Diana stood still, tears welling up in her eyes; her legs wouldn't work, and she just stood there, looking at the white stone and struggling to not cry.
Bernadette was crying as well, however she found the strength to move forward. The grass muffled her footsteps and her grip tightened on the bouquet and she walked up to the white, rectangular stone sitting just a few feet away from her grandmother's. Somehow, she managed to smile through the tears as she knelt down and placed the flowers in front of the grave.
"Hi, Okaasan."
She stood and stepped back then, noticing the sun for the first time burning through fog and making it easier to see. And that was when, for the first time, she noticed the smaller sapling growing behind the tombstone. "Mom, look."
Diana finally found the strength to come forward, and followed her daughter around the tombstone to look at the young tree. It was maybe five and a half feet, but the best part about it were the pink buds growing for the first time. The older blonde laughed through her tears.
"Cherry Blossoms. Oh, Akko…" She would have expected nothing less from the Japanese witch.
The two stood there for a minute, admiring the young tree that belonged to their wife and mother, before Bernadette walked back around to look at the tombstone again. The sun shone through, light causing the white marble to glisten, the gold writing gleaming softly as well as warming the younger woman. The warmth reminded her of the hugs Okaasan would give her, strong and warm and full of love. The memory broke her. She felt the tears start to roll down her face silently as the familiar ache returned.
The older blonde looked over at her daughter, whose face was in her hands as she cried, and went over to her. She put an arm around her, tears streaming down her own face as Bernadette sobbed softly. "Shhh…."
"I j-just… Mom, I miss her… so much…"
Diana sighed and looked down at the tombstone, with the flowers placed in front and the tree growing proudly behind. She could almost hear Akko's voice, full of happiness and pride.
"Look Diana, I'm a tree! How cool is this? Don't cry. I'm right here, hanging out with your mom—who loves me, by the way! I love you both so much. Don't ever forget that, okay?"
"I know. I miss her, too.