A/N: This will probably have small, sporadic updates. I've been having a lot of fun dabbling in different universes (superhero AU is on it's way, hopefully). Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

"Memory is the sense of loss, and loss pulls us after it."
- Marilynne Robinson

"You have to stop moving now," a voice whispered.

Elisabeth Delmas opened her eyes to see her mother speaking to the portrait that hung on the opposite side of the room. Elisabeth had always liked the portrait, it was of her family and she had worn her favorite shade of pink, a simple but lovely dress that had made her feel elegant and royal. Her mother had on a slightly paler shade, but had looked no less regal. Even her father had been coerced into wearing a pink tie, beaming happily at his family in his arms.

Usually, the subjects of the portrait were laughing or waving, but at the voice's whispered orders they had nodded and gone still. The figure the voice belonged to turned around and saw Elisabeth looking at her and the glow of several floating lights illuminated the figure's face enough that Elisabeth smiled slightly in recognition.

"Mom, what are you doing?" Elisabeth murmured.

Her mother took a few steps closer to the bed and set her palm on Elisabeth's cheek. "What is necessary," she whispered. Her face looked strained, even more so in the dim lights, which seemed to stretch out the shadows, but she smiled softly.

Swiftly and without breaking the eye contact, she drew her want and waved. The floating lights dimmed until they were nothing. Elisabeth's mother stowed her wand then bent down and kissed her cheek. "I love you," she said. "Don't you ever forget that, okay?"

Elisabeth nodded slightly, wide eyes looking up at her mother. "I love you too, Mom. And I won't. Why? What's happening?"

"Nothing," her mother said and started rubbing Elisabeth's head, absentmindedly playing with the long hair. "I just wanted you to know. Go back to sleep. I'll be right here."

Sissi nodded sleepily and, as the minutes ticked by, slowly fell into a peaceful sleep. Her mother then hesitatingly removed the hand from Elisabeth's hair and let it slip into her pocket to retrieve her wand. She pointed the wand at her daughter, and it trembled in her grip. She stayed in that position for a few more moments before she finally moved.

"Obliviate," she choked and, without looking back, turned and went downstairs to where the spell would be repeated.

It was a dark evening, with a new moon and a generous overgrowth of trees and vines around the small house in the woods. It was a silent evening too, since rain had just come with the threat of more, and all the animals were buried deep in their respective homes.

The house was a cozy one, made of wood and stone with a cauldron burning in the fireplace, overflowing with a sweet-smelling steam. Candles were lit throughout the house, some on shelves and ledges and others hovering in mid-air, and the occasional fairy's light could be seen as it raced through open windows. Several stacks of books were piled on tables, and in the corner was a dirty broom and a miniature one stacked neatly next to it.

A man sat at a desk, muttering to himself and fervently writing, even as quills wrote on either side of him with no hands to guide them. He seemed to pay them no mind, and if he remembered, they would seem simply as the after-images of some long-past, whimsical dream.

Come morning the candles would be placed on the ground, the cauldron gone, and windows closed off to any potential fairies. But Jean-Pierre Delmas would have a new paper waiting on his desk, where the quills laid flat. A school in France, Kadic Academy, had just offered him a job.

He would take it.

And for many, many years, the portrait in Elisabeth's room would remain still.