Red sky in the morning is never a good omen. Gretel waits, not she is not sure what she is waiting for but certain that it can't be anything good. She has watched over her brother throughout the night, guarding him through restless slumber, knowing that when he wakes it will be to a reality which Hansel will rail against with all of his being. Mina died for Hansel: his feelings on the matter will be somewhat unpredictable.
They've both had flings over the years, one night trysts that don't interfere with the bond they have with one another, hurried couplings with near anonymous partners who aren't encouraged to spend the night, but this one was different. This one, with her sweet smile and her gentle nature, had touched him in some way.
Gretel sees her brother in a way that nobody else would think to and there is pain beneath his anger, genuine pain like an animal caught in a trap. She recalls the stricken expression on her brother's face, eyes shuttered and blank, when he looked at the witch on the ground; remembers the careful way he picked up the girl's body and carried her back to town. In spite of the walls that her brother builds up around himself, never letting anyone close, this one had meant something to him. This one had been more than a quick lay as they passed through town. She had died for him and that was a debt that could never be repaid.
She watches, holding her breath, as Hansel's eyes slowly open and she waits for the rage that she knows is coming. Nobody else would know to expect it but she can see the boiling frustration in him, the storm that is brewing beneath the outwardly calm exterior. Whenever their eyes meet, the past rises between them, around them, the weight of shared memory making them so attuned to one another as to practically be the same person. She waits for the moment of realisation, for words that she knows will hurt both of them, for blame and recrimination and demands for retaliation that will precede the release of his true emotions on the subject of Mina.
Hansel doesn't speak but even through the silence his eyes say everything he wants to say and possibly some of the things he doesn't. The stormy blue of his irises are dimmed by something beyond drowsiness. There is a flicker of something in that sleepy gaze, something dangerous, and Gretel sees the banked anger that kindles when he takes in the injuries about her person which she has treated while he slept. Then, abruptly, the anger recedes and his eyes offer apology for all of his perceived failures and the promise that as long as he breathes he will never let anything harm her again.
"You look like shit," she says softly, disquieted by the emotion that burns in his gaze. The words are largely redundant, a ritual, familiar as the lines and calluses of one another's palms when they find themselves tied up in emotions that they would sooner not admit. He had told her the exact same thing not forty-eight hours earlier in the gingerbread house as they rolled on the floor beaten and bloody trying to catch their breaths while his medicine took effect, just moments before they took Muriel's head. His lips twitch but he can't quite find his usual smile, the one he saves just for her. His eyes darken, grief clouding them as the memory returns.
She knows what is coming and she is as prepared for it as she will get.
Hansel turns his head, looking across the room to where their bags are already packed and waiting. "Where is Mina?"
She sees the emotion there, hears the catch of it in his words, and knows that he isn't asking because he expects a miracle; he is asking because he needs to know what happened to the body. Something inside of her breaks. For the first time since they were eleven years old Gretel is not his only concern and a strange jealousy flowers inside her, a dark cancerous flower that could destroy her so easily if she allows it to take root and flourish. Hansel is not hers, not in that way. He is her brother, her twin, her everything, but even she, a Godless heathen in the eyes of the people she saves, does not transcend the bond of their shared blood. She has no right to feel envy over what he might have shared with another but she does. She should share his grief over Mina's passing, but in this moment she can't.
She had watched her brother stagger back to the very edge of town with Mina's body in his arms. She had watched him collapse when his legs could no longer hold him and he had been forced to relinquish her body to Edward's surprisingly tender grip (though in hindsight the tenderness made perfect sense - trolls served witches and to the embers of her being that was exactly what Mina had been). Gretel was the only one there to see the haunted look in his eye as she cleaned Mina's blood off his face and hands, to hear the pain of his mutterings and wipe away the tears that he likely doesn't know he shed as he lay sedated on the bed.
She has been at his side the entire time, only leaving him in the care of Ben for an hour or two in order to take care of matters that she would not trust to others. Two days she has waited for this particular storm and she knows that it will not pass quickly.
"You were out for two days," she tells him gently, "we took care of it."
The flash of pain cuts at her like a lash, but then Hansel's pain has always hurt her more deeply than her own. "Tell me that you didn't burn her," is all he says. His voice is empty, hollow, but she knows that he is waiting for her to offer the details that he needs to hear.
"We buried her," she reassures him. It is the truth, Gretel herself had wielded the shovel that cut the earth for the grave. She had toiled and bled for the woman who saved her brother, for the only rival she had ever had for Hansel's affections and she had done it willingly. With sweat and blood and a power that she barely understood she had honoured the sacrifice of the first white witch that she had ever known, placing the wand that the redhead had carried in her hands for the last time before she covered her with dirt. She had done what instinct told her to, sharing her actions and the emotions they stirred with the moon and the stars. "I saw to it myself."
Hansel nods silently, a sign of gratitude which she accepts. He reaches for her hands, turns them over and observes the bandage that she has wrapped around her right palm. Gretel wants to pull away, to put distance between them so that he cannot see what she has done; she doesn't want him to know about the ancient words that she spoke over the grave, of the blood that she spilled into the soil …
He knows though, she sees it in his eyes along with his surprise. You don't come through a hell like the one they've walked through without developing a certain appreciation of one another; they don't need words to communicate and he can always see when she's hiding.
"You gave her the words …" he comments, unwrapping the linen with shaking fingers until he can see the single clean cut that marrs her skin.
"I gave her the words," she admits, keeping her eyes averted from his own. She doesn't understand why she did it, where the impulse came from, only that something deep within her had sounded a call beneath the moon and stars that she had been powerless to ignore.
The words of a thousand blessings are their deepest secret, the words that their mother would whisper over them in the dark to protect and nourish them no matter where they travelled, a child's memory tinted lavender with time and murmured to one another time and time again when they are hurt or wounded or suffering. In death the words were allegedly a prayer of safe passage to whatever afterlife awaited the departed. Gretel had known that it was what Hansel would have wanted and she so had provided it in his stead. "It was the only thing that I could do for her. I bled for her as she bled for you."
Hansel's hand tightens around hers, his grip almost painful against the barely healing wound in her hand. The wound is a penance, a mourning rite that she will carry in her flesh, an ache that will keep Mina in her thoughts for days and weeks to come. The scar will be a remembrance, a mark that will forever remind her of how close she came to losing her brother. "Be careful what you awaken Gretel," he tells her, "an offering of blood is a prayer in the dark. We have no way of knowing what the magic you carry is capable of."
All she can do is nod to show that she hears him and that she will in fact have a care for her safety. Only when he's satisfied does he release his grip on her hand.
Within hours of waking, Hansel is out of bed, washed and dressed. He isn't quite ready for them to continue on their way, he won't be for a couple of days, but he's strong enough for the journey they are about to make.
Gretel stays close to him as they walk the streets to the town walls, keeping a watchful eye on the way he moves. Flickers of strain come and go from his face and his stride lacks it's usual pace but he makes the journey without complaint. The uneven ground outside of town is hard going for him, he stumbles more than once and rights himself. She allows him his pride and says nothing: even at full strength this journey would have proven physically and emotionally draining to him.
"Almost there," she tells him as they approach their destination. "In the clearing between those trees; you'll see it." She hangs back to let him pay his respects in private, watching the way that he steels himself before he steps forward and walks slowly to the place where she buried the woman who saved his life.
Minutes tick by, turning to what could be hours, the light changing position as the sun moves across the sky and at the first whisper of dusk Gretel rises from the log on which she sits and goes to seek him out. Head bowed he kneels at the side of the grave, his back to her as she approaches on near silent feet.
It looks different in the light of day, sunlight dappling the ground with golden-yellow light and not the colder light of the moon, but Gretel could find this place with her eyes closed simply by following her feet. The magic lingers, calling to her, she can taste it, that and the heavy smell of roses that perfumes the air.
"You did this," he tells her without turning, "the magic, the blood, the roses are what you brought forth, a mingling of your essence and hers. I can sense you both when I breathe it in."
Gretel stares at the bed of roses that has appeared over Mina's resting place in amazement but doesn't argue. She can feel the lingering power, the song of magic that whispers through the earth and air. Hansel carries the same blood as her, the same legacy, it seems natural to her that he should share some, if not all, of the gifts that come from being the child of a Grand Witch. "I might have provided the power but Mina shaped the gift," she tells him. "I'm not a roses sort of girl."
Hansel climbs to his feet, weaving slightly and steps back from the grave. She pretends not to notice that his shirt is torn or to see then freshly crudely bandaged area around his palm. The roses have done an excellent job of concealing the disturbance to the ground and in another day or two nobody will be able to tell that there was a burial there at all. "It's better than I could have given her," he admits. She hears the pain in those words, rivers of it, and understands what the admission must cost him. "You honoured her in a way that I couldn't, you gave life in her memory and left beauty in the darkness. Will they flourish?"
Narrowing her eyes, she stares at the roses and then moves toward them. Reaching out with her injured palm, she touches the petals of one particularly fat bloom, watching as the stems and vines move, turning toward her as if answering a call. The petals open outwards, perfume filling the air. She can feel them, she realises, they call to her magic and her magic calls to them. "They'll flourish," she tells him, retracting her hand and crossing the clearing back to his side. "Blood is the river of memory and Mina's will nourish them."
They walk back to town together, side by side, Hansel throwing an arm around her shoulder in a gesture of affection and as a way of leaning on her without making it obvious that he needs the support. Gretel accepts it, allows it because it is as much a moment of communion between them, a touching and rebuilding of foundations, as it is a hug. They will be okay, Hansel will be okay. His silent goodbyes to Mina have taken some of the shadows from his eyes, the rest will take time and patience, two things that Gretel has for her brother in abundance.
Days later when they leave Augsberg, Hansel's shields are well and truly back in place. To look at him it would be easy to believe that whatever transpired between him and the white witch had been nothing of importance, but Gretel knows better. Gretel knows her brother body and soul, thought and dream. He walks with determination but she sees the strain. He speaks with authority but she can feel his doubt.
He will heal though, of that she is sure. When she closes her eyes she can see the cracks in him, the outline that is slowly filling itself in as he rebuilds himself. Being on the road is helping, late night conversations between them are helping, but nothing helps him as much as spilling the blood of one of Muriel's witches. In that regard they are in absolute agreement.
As the months pass, and the wounds to their palms heal, they find new ways to honour Mina's memory. Gretel no longer envies the place that other woman once occupied in Hansel's heart, instead she embraces it. Mina has become a part of them, like the matching scars they each bear on their dagger hands, always there in the rushing of their blood or the quiet moments when Gretel wakes from dreams of disaster, the scent of roses, copper and her own creeping fear still on the air. Her death has taught them always to be two steps ahead of the enemy.
Soft, gentle Mina is the catalyst that starts the purge, her death kindling the fire that burns in them and gives them the strength to do what needs to be done. They knit themselves back together with renewed strength and purpose, sweeping a path through town after town, their legend moving ahead of them in awed whispers.
Together in the dark, they stare at the moon as they strike the match on yet another funeral pyre, unflinching as the flames creep up to dance against the night sky. Hansel's fingers find hers, his palm warm against her own. There is no room for regrets, no past to remember fondly or quiet, domestic future to look forward to. This is one more area in which they are completely in agreement, even if they choose not to share it with Edward and Ben - who might someday hope for something approaching a normal life - they exist in the penetrating wound, the moment in which they drive a blade so deep into a witch that they pin her to the ground, in the spill of blood, in the battle cry. They revel in the blood drenched glory of it all, howling their suffering and their victories to the night sky.
In such quiet moments, wrapped in leather and darkness, Gretel looks at her brother and she sees the path they walk - past, present and future. In their sufferings, the rattle and agony of broken bones, the cry of the wild and primitive in their hearts, they know themselves. Life is a fight from the moment first breath is drawn until the moment the last is exhaled. They know their purpose. They are made for the hunt and in Mina's memory they will light fires under every witch that stands between them and their final gasping breath.