Warnings: Horror themes, physical character distress and a little language.
A/N: Features genderswapped Sherlock and genderswapped John (Joan) in a medieval/fantasy/fairytale AU. Written for the 2012 winter round of Holmestice exchange for ladyofthelog. Betaread by the fab fififolle.
Joan looked into the eyes of the wolf one night. That's what they spin when they tell her story to the children. They say no man can do the things she tells them he's done, no man has eyes that blaze or howls into the night. Real people don't crawl from the oily midnight black waters of the sea and lunge at you.
Sherlock listens to their corrections and repeats each fact over the top of them because Sherlock was lured there too, both following the trail of fish eyes on the path to the sandy dunes, but no one likes to listen to her. What can she know, the baron's daughter who plays with changing ore into gold, too uppity and attention seeking, in their opinion? They don't see Sherlock as Joan does, fingers dangerously skimming with appreciation the sharp metal edges she creates, or lurking in the trees, mapping as far as can be seen. Sherlock disregards their beliefs and looks beyond their small world; they can't understand why anyone would care to.
They are simply two troublesome girls who wandered into the forest, got lost and nearly paid the price. They should be more careful, they should stay at home with menfolk. They say it in a special heavy-handed expressiveness she knows to mean more precisely the implied future husbands they have both yet to 'secure' due to their odd ways. Joan thinks the elders are mad, because she has no more intention of giving up the smithy to a husband who will turf her out of it than to her drunken brother who doesn't know hardening from a tempering, and the best advice would surely be to get a sword, she'd even make them all one if they asked nicely. A few times.
Joan knows all the tales told in the village so she knows the Wolfman doesn't fit with what happened to them – he was bark and no bite, they'd be dead otherwise - but one event does stick out to her as familiar. The demon stalking towards them was called off by a flock of ravens Sherlock swears are not native to their region, appearing out of nowhere, a black mist across their vision with their echoed harking back to him repeating incessantly until he broke off his chase in annoyance. The ethereal bird song of the Coven Belgrave had saved them.
It's just a legend, they chide. No truth in it. The irony makes her laugh, because they are so quick to link her experience to a tale, a tale that they approve of. But this is not like the Wolfman, it doesn't fit, and no one will recognise what it undoubtedly was. Except Sherlock.
"Nothing is untrue until proven so," Sherlock says calmly as she keeps her eyes focused on the manuscript in front of her and deftly taps a measure of some mysterious metal shavings into the mortar to one side without looking.
"So what do we do? Wait for him to track us down?" Joan asks, edgy at being inside the manor uninvited by Sherlock's notoriously protective elder brother but just as uncomfortable with the idea of leaving and letting this be.
Whatever he, it, was, it had wanted them viscerally, a hunger implied with the grin and a pointed lick of his lips before it had turned away to more important matters, and she couldn't imagine the soul, if there was one, behind those burning eyes being content to rest when its prey still grazed his hunting ground.
Every night since she relived those moments in full, right down to the smell of the sea salt becoming evident on the path as she edged closer along it to the coast, knowing this time it too was edging closer to her and unable to flee, like destiny drew the three of them to the end. It was different when she slept though, more than a memory relived; she told herself it was only that she heard the townspeople talk of it over and over, embellishing it no end, but she had started to sense its impatience and some nights she thought it had reached out to snap at thin air, just missing the hem of her shirt, and setting her heart racing for the close call that should not (had not) been. Each time she'd woken up from the dream filled with a deep sense of dread and an unhealthy tinge of excitement.
So she knows she can't stand by, it was never an option regardless of what people will think, but she hopes Sherlock will agree. They are all bound together in what this brings, whether it be life or death.
Sherlock's finger pauses on the page and she glances up, scanning Joan's expression. If she is inspecting for something in particular in Joan's countenance she seems to find it, deciding to close the tome with heft and redirect her industry. After a composed second she replies with about as much delight as Joan secretly feels in her bones.
"No. We go on a hunt. A witch-hunt."
Fog crawls around them and strange noises haunt the horizon. Leather clad Sherlock stalks on ahead either bravely or foolishly, hard to know which it is. Joan has never felt so alive. Or cold.
Horses would have been more sensible, immensely more sensible, quicker and warmer, but Sherlock had rightly reasoned that to do so would attract more attention, noisier and likely to be noticed missing. Which is both bloody frustrating and somehow brilliant too. She gets the impression Sherlock does sneaking out a lot, not just for the illicit archery practice she has spied the woman doing before.
Ahead of her Sherlock stops abruptly in the long grass. She really hopes that isn't hesitancy she's showing by doing so, and a sign they're actually two girls who wandered in the woods and got lost this time, because they've walked so far she has no real idea where they are and it's all on Sherlock right now. Plus, it would be so damn embarrassing to admit if they'd have to hitch a ride home into the village, rescued like damsels in distress, if not in appropriate dresses.
"How much farther?" she asks begrudgingly as she trudges up behind Sherlock, almost having caught her up for once during the traipse around tonight.
"Shush!" Sherlock's hand shoots up, finger raised, to accompany her command. Something Joan chooses to ignore, because a one word lack of an explanation is not really enough reason to do as her new friend rudely desires.
"Do you even know where you're going anymore?"
"Not precisely," Sherlock replies, waving that fact off, "but it doesn't matter. Be quiet."
"What do you mea-" John tries to say but she is unfortunately within range of Sherlock, who claps a hand tightly over her mouth and stares at her with scrutiny.
"Can't you hear it?" Sherlock demands in the lightest and harshest whisper manageable.
Joan stares back at her, no clue what it is she's meant to be hearing.
"The silence," Sherlock exclaims madly, wide-eyed at the revelation uncovered, and exasperated with her.
Joan starts to groan at the ridiculousness of the statement, muffled as it will be through Sherlock's grasp, before she realises Sherlock is right. There is an eeriness to the meadow, an unnaturalness, devoid of all sounds of life but the creaks of their shoes. Sherlock's hand drops as presumably she realises Joan has latched onto the point made. Even the grass makes no noise as she shifts her foot in-between the swathes; it sways in the wind noiselessly and from the grasses her focus shifts upwards instinctively to where Sherlock's sight is obsessively locked.
In the near distance a dark-haired woman stands under a dogwood tree that Joan knows she would have noticed were it there before, the white blossoms like a light on the horizon. Her sea-green skirts blow to the left in a breeze Joan can't feel on her own cheeks and she doesn't honestly know what to trust anymore.
"Where are they?" Sherlock calls out to the woman.
Joan watches the woman, no reaction evident, face passive as if she doesn't see or hear them. Sherlock shouts louder again and it seems like her voice is drowned out by the non-existent wind, words twisting back upon them, changing direction impossibly.
"I'll ask the questions here, unless you wish to give tribute. Who is they and who are you?"
The rich voice coming with such clarity, practically purring in her ear, all of a sudden startles Joan, but Sherlock pivots quickly, tugging Joan loosely to join their face off and present a united front in the clearing with a fire that has appeared where none was earlier.
"The Coven Belgrave. This is their sacred space."
Sherlock loses no time regaining ground conversationally despite the honest to God re-materialisation of the same woman from under the tree to only yards behind them. That apparently does not boggle Sherlock, where as the absent coven does.
"Ground that few dare step upon," the woman taunts as she circles them at a distance. A distance that Joan suspects is more for their false comfort than for her protection, as for the second time in weeks she has the unnerving sensation of being stalked like prey.
"Confess, why are you here?" the woman tempts an explanation that would be easy to give up and Joan wonders briefly if they shouldn't just say so. Sherlock doesn't however, persisting in her own agenda.
"Why aren't they here?"
The woman purses her lips wryly, withholding a laugh that still shines on the rest of her features.
"The assumption amuses me so, and your attitude leaves something to be desired, but if you must know, I am many things to many people."
"It is you alone?" Sherlock asks semi-incredulously.
"One for all and all for one. Works incredibly well for me, just me."
"But what do you do here, why do people come?"
Why did 'he' come is the one question Sherlock doesn't ask and the one they want the answer to most of all. The woman tilts her head at the feeble query, obviously aware there is more to come, secrets only she can break, and at that she circles closer, impressively standing rod-straight perched on the balls of her feet right up nose to nose with the lanky stature of Sherlock.
"I makes wishes come true, darling."
"Then why do they hate you? Why are witches banished if that's all you do?" asks Joan, mystified at the anti-climax. She'd thought witches ate babies and stole crops, anything but did what you asked them to.
"All I do, you don't understand," she retorts sharply, insult evidently taken yet her composure is kept. "That's what I do and what no other can do. Naturally I can only do that if I know your deepest darkest desire. What else would you be left wanting in the world?"
"A barrage of dirty little secrets traded and no one wants theirs known," matched Sherlock, voicing the logical conclusion.
"Precisely. I give them exactly what they want and they disown me for it."
"Then why take that burden?" Sherlock seems bewildered as she asks this of the woman.
"I have the power. I have immunity," the witch replies proudly.
"But no freedom," Sherlock counters.
"I'm sure you ladies are familiar with that."
Ignoring the deflection, Sherlock finally gets to the crux of their quest; about time, Joan thinks, though she wasn't keen to try again to break into the uncanny banter that had fast developed with this pair, not when Sherlock seemed to be making progress.
"And the stranger you summoned, who is he?"
"He was just a man," she answers coyly and Joan suspects this is exactly true of everyone when they approach her, as just people, though significantly less likely to be the case following an 'innocent' conversation, or else what was the point of seeking out such a person as her?
"But he's something else now, something more, what you made him," Sherlock rallies, pushing the topic stubbornly, "What did he want?"
"To become a legend."
The answer is given freely, smoothly said like the aspiration was simplicity itself. An uninterpretable emotion flashes across Sherlock's face with her appreciation of the admittance. For a long moment no one utters a syllable. Joan doesn't quite understand, even if possibly realisation has dawned for Sherlock. It's hard to tell what either of the two women are thinking, motionless across from each other, bizarre mirror images of wit and poise promptly closed off with the battle over.
"Do you know what she means, Sherlock?"
No reply. Sherlock's gaze drops, blanking to the dusty ground, dropping out of the conversation, leaving Joan to continue to pursue a proper answer.
"But why us, what did he want with us?" Joan questions, not sure she'll get anywhere.
With the mental link between her and Sherlock broken by the latter's ungracious dumbness, the witch deigns to answer Joan for a second time.
"I'm told virgins have the freshest sweetest blood, but I wouldn't know, I prefer my women to know what they're here for."
"I'm not a virgin," Joan corrects defiantly.
"Not by your custom," the witch declares, her glassy eyes shifting deliberately from her to Sherlock's stoney face and back again curiously watching for Joan's reaction, "or mine, but men have their traditional standards and the rules of the storyteller reign."
"Undo it. Make him human again."
"It doesn't work like that. Did you think I could simply click my fingers," she demonstrated theatrically, "and you'd be safe?"
It could be her imagination but the fire sparkles brighter, fiercer, the light in the glade intense suddenly. The night darkens to pitch black and Joan wakes up to dewy grass poking up her nose. Sherlock is sprawled next to her and there is no indication the meeting occurred apart from the charred remains of the bonfire that Joan stares at dejectedly.
"She's gone," Sherlock slurs at her side, failing to prop herself up adequately on first try, the enchantment obviously affecting her more strongly.
"Then what? What do we do, Sherlock?" Joan enquires genuinely. They seem no closer to a solution or any protection than they were before they'd tracked the witch down.
"Give him precisely what he desires. An epic tale to go down in the books."
At the same place they first met the thing in Strade Bay, facing the French coast, they wait four nights later. Joan rests at the shore, drawing her berry red cape around her. The stars are the one light in the sky with the new moon in phase and she shivers not entirely out of chill as she counts down to the spring tide. Peering at the distant tree line she wishes she could make out the shape of Sherlock but her friend is nowhere to be seen, just as planned.
The waters creep towards her bare feet with every minute and Joan fights the urge to bolt. If she runs now she will have to keep running forever more and she won't do that, she can't give up her life. It is not what her parents would have wished for her, the way she lives and the company she keeps, but neither is her sibling's life, and hers at least has honour, she works hard and does nothing that should bring shame to her family name. Contemplating what she's done and not done at least distracts her from the water gathering at her toes wave after wave. She is too late to shout out the formal words "Adroit Fisherman" to signal 'its' arrival as she is pulled under the waves.
The beast of a man swirls in the sea, limbs frenetic and motions twisted, dragging her to a resting place nestled in the seaweed beds. A tendril coiled around her ankle holds her tight as he rises from the deep to get his intended second victim. Joan prays Sherlock can pull the plan off, for her sake even if she herself is doomed. The salt water is liquid burning down her throat and in her lungs as fierce as the red eyes she was prepared for. She feels strangely euphoric as she swears she can see the sky up above on fire and hear screams that sound a thrilling song combined with the beat of blood in her ears.
Then there are impossible arms tugging at her, insistently, and a sharp bite in her foot until the kelp restraint snaps. The night is darkest to her eyes at that moment, thoughts slipping past her half-formed. Nothing makes sense down here. Will it ever more if this is where she stays? It doesn't fit with the fate she deserved, succumbing to a watery grave.
As Sherlock half drags her bedraggled form towards the outskirts of the village Joan recalls her hazy dream she'd had laid on the floor of the witches circle - her beautiful face with shadows cast darkly across it and lips moving to ask, "What do you search for, what can I deliver unto you?" She had said nothing, not trusting the woman - and sneaking a look at Sherlock, face grimacing in determination yet utterly amazing regardless, she knows it is herself she needs to trust, her choices she needs to believe in.
Living what you desire feels do or die, and having it handed to you will always be alluring. From what she can gather wishing only causes heartache though, to those pulled in when it has come to pass against all order or to those who wish and wish like her brother, longing for the unattainable local landlord and for change, without courage to follow through. Legend is written in ink forever more but your story is what you make of it, changeable like the winds and as breathy as you want. She squeezes her hand on Sherlock's shoulder, who gives her an odd look and halts, confused.
"I just need a moment."
"Fine."
"Actually, we just need a moment."
And Sherlock has no opportunity to question her intention as Joan makes it decidedly clear, pressing her lips to Sherlock's. The kiss is brief and chaste, but the fulfilment of a want she's had for over a year causes a blush to rise to her cheeks nevertheless. It's nice and it's perfectly good for a first kiss, as long as there are more in the future. She hopes and her breath catches as she anticipates Sherlock's acknowledgment. There's no violence so far, which is promising.
"That was...unusual."
"Did you like it?" Joan dares to ask, which might be pushing it but she absolutely has to know the truth after finding the bravado to act on her wish.
"I'll let you know once we've repeated it sufficient times to get a good idea."
Sherlock sounds uncertain, a little shaken but the look in her eyes says not unpleasantly so.
"One question though."
"If you feel the need," Sherlock says distractedly, concentrating much more on returning Joan's arm over her shoulder again as her swaying is apparent.
"What did you want? When the witch offered, which I bet she did. I know she did me."
"That's irrelevant, whatever she could grant I can achieve myself. I don't require help."
"Or, I hear, friends?" Joan probes, having heard how notoriously Sherlock remains unattached at virtually every level of her life.
"No, not friends," Sherlock replies dryly, pausing to add, "Just one it appears. I think I can make room in my busy schedule for a friend, provided you grant me a single request."
"Anything," is her default reply, which she tries to cover with a casual followup, "I mean, I think I can probably..." It would fool no one though, least of all Sherlock, so she breaks off with a simpler answer of " - what do you need?"
"Never let them tell our stories. Ever. They're ours and you shall tell them in all their uncustomary glory and gore."
"It should probably be renamed Devil's Bay, in that case."
"Don't forget the part where you drowned and I miraculously brought you back to life."
"Should I leave out the snogging me back to life detail?"
"It was breath, I was breathing for you. And no, never. I could do with a good scandal to scare off potential male suitors."
"So I'll be doing you a favour, will I?"
"I wouldn't go that far."
"How far will you go?"
"Test me."
Tongues will wag, Joan knows, but she couldn't care less which as long as one of them was her own.