let us always find each other.
x
12 BC
she's just a follower and she's not meant to see how fragile, how human he is. they say that he's the savior, but with his shoulder saddled with the dead wood, blood caked in dirt. brown eyes still kind despite the gaping wounds on the small of his back, skin slick with sweat, splinters in his fingernails in his eyes, that barbed crown cradling his head.
she's not a religious person, but if she's going to believe in one man, it's going to be him.
x
1350
her father forbids her to see him. propriety keeps her in her walls, but he has none which is why he's scaling them under the hush of the moon, his smile like a slash of silver in the dim. she curses the waning moon for never being that bright.
they steal kisses and touches behind closed doors. him slipping silently out in the morning, dawn lighting his face like a halo. she's young and naïve and thinks that they're invincible so when the night comes again without him in all its screaming silence, she waits.
the next night she waits again.
she waits for a fortnight. and then another and he never returns.
she never learns he's been here the whole time, buried beneath the floorboards of stones and trap doors. she never learns that her father put him there. she never learns that the first heartache doesn't heal as well as the others as she marries another man with his face in the early morning sun burning a hole in her mind.
x
1587
her head comes off in one clean slice of an axe and the last thing she hears is his voice.
allison.
if she's going to be the one lost in this life, then she at least is happy that she gave him a chance.
x
1676
she's pinning her hair back, heading out into the woods, bow at the ready, lips crimson and stark against the snow falling on her shoulders. it's the kiss of evening and she's deliberately disobeying orders but in any lifetime she's pretty sure that she was never good at following directions.
branches crack underfoot, boots leaving a trail in the powder, green cape flying out wildly behind her like wings. there's a low growl from a lurid alcove of trees dusted with dripping ice. Allison whirls on her heel, weapon drawn taut and comes face to face with a man with glowing bergamot eyes and talons on his hands. he immediately rises from his crouched position, appraising her, slowly regaining his original features.
argent, he says with care, voice lilted with accent.
mccall, she gasps out, lowering her bow, the glean of the silver flashing across her cheeks.
por favor, no digas nadie, he pleads, eyes sincere and hands folded as in prayer to the goddess of the hunt. a catholic man begging an idol.
she merely gives a curt nod, watching him whisk away to the trees, feet sure beneath him. her father can never know.
x
1740
his mother loves and loathes her in equal measure.
she loves her because her son does. foolishly so.
she loathes her because her son cannot. foolishly so.
x
1817
her skirts are trailed with mud on the lace trim, fingers sullied with tree bark tears, and unholy sighs on her father's mouth when she enters the drawing room in this state. to say he's uninspired is an understatement although he looks like he'd rather she shoot him twice with her crossbow than deal with the matter at hand, whom he introduces with a roll of his eyes and the flick of a smirk across his lips. chris practically sprints out of the room anticipating his daughter's actions. she knows how to win this game well.
matthew is it? she inquires, sickly sweet, dripping with disdain.
the man in question stares in horror at her skirts, the brambles of thistles woven in her chocolate curls, nails bitten to the whit. she grins.
perhaps I have the wrong house, he stutters, backing out the doorway into her father.
chris indicates the exit and watches as the poor boy runs out of the house. shoes clacking without grace on the parquet.
another one? alright then, her father says heavy with resignation but pride swells in his chest that she knows she isn't meant to notice.
she laughs in reply and drags her muddied skirts along the floor, bow clanging noisily across her back as she returns to her room. Allison breathes across the window panes, etched with finer script written by another:
the lake. tonight. moonrise.
she smiles so wide it's indecent.
x
1899
she's sitting alone in a café when it happens.
hello, my name's scott mccall, the boy tells her, his grin effervescent, reaching all the way to his eyes. his hair is a mop of brown curls and his skin is the color of the coffee in her cup. and she can tell he is unnervingly sincere by one look. he sits across from her without invitation and waits for her to introduce herself. she extends a gloved hand.
Allison argent, she replies, hand lingering in his. and he grins, settling back into his chair, ordering her another coffee and a madeline because who doesn't have a treat with their coffee? he looks positively outraged at the thought and she considers this proposition before making him eat five macaroons in a row, which he does without pause.
the afternoon is short and he leaves before she wants him to, but the next day he's already there waiting for her to arrive.
x
1947
he does everything and anything to keep her.
yet war is cruel and it won't let her keep him.
x
2014
his name is blood in between her teeth, choking on years that are lost when they could have had so many more. she doesn't cry, she doesn't even waver in her voice. she's so sure and strong and he absolutely removes the knife that's been in his side for her for years and lets himself bleed out with her in his hands.
he thinks selfishly that there will be other girls. other girls with chocolate hair. other girls with crimson lips. other girls with arrows in their spines, with eternities stitched on their lips, with bravery in the crouch of their hips, but they won't be. will they? his heart inquires.
he's scott mccall and she's Allison argent and every goddamn story ever written has been about them.
this isn't how it was supposed to happen. the world ends with a beautiful girl at seventeen.
x
2015
theo takes hayden and scott's heart stops its rotation in his ribcage.
first love? Derek asks watching liam , head between his knees, gasping on air.
I know it well, he thinks, biting his lip so hard it draws blood.
x
2016
she was a million different things at once, but that's not what he remembers when the beast digs into the base of his spine, talons drawing out the memories that have been bottled up for what seems like too short of time. ones that he brings out only under the slip of dark, ones that live in the past stained with ghosts that echo a horrid reverberation in his heart.
god she was so beautiful. the kind of beauty that was painful to look at though you never tired of it. and god she was so compassionate. taught to kill him on sight but instead fell in love with the enemy and he knows that it sounds like every cliché in the story.
even now alive only his past, she is the kind of girl that history books never forget. the kind of girl that boys like him never get over. the kind of girl that brings a world to its knees with an invincible sacrifice of silver.
he once heard that even if a wolf survives the impact, the silver never will. he would have gladly given anything for the legend to change just once.
