happy lost girl day! of course, i didn't come up with this idea until the webisodes, which i didn't watch until last week...sighs. so it'll probably be au, and depending on where jay goes this season, i may or may not include elements of the first couple episodes. we'll see. this story will be fairly short, just leading up to when bo comes back.
i'll try to post on sundays, but i am tied up in a few stories right now, so i may be delayed.
thanks to you for reading, and please let me know what you think! peace out.
A gentle breeze blew in through the open window, and orange-red leaves outside swirled in the autumn dusk. Lit ethereally by the glow of candles, three robed women stole into the room where the new baby slumbered.
Holding her flaming taper in one creamy hand, the first woman lowered her white velvet hood. Her silver curls glinted mystically under flickering illumination. She ran the thumb of her now-empty hand across her distended lower lip, and began to twist a strand of saliva from her mouth. But as the clear fluid left her tongue, it turned into opalescent fibers, waiting to be spun into thread.
The second sister took the thread from the first and applied it to a spinning wheel that had appeared. She took her seat, her hood down as well, which revealed the garland of camellias wreathed in her braids. She placed her candle to the side to light her work. Her right foot, twice as large as the other, pressed the treadle back and forth to spin the fibers into yarn. As she spun, the yarn took shape, pooling in glittering coils of rope upon the floor.
The last woman lowered her own hood, and her layered necklaces of silver and gold caught the light. She picked the thread up from where her sister had let it drop, and knotted it at one end with a roll of her enlarged thumb. Examining the thread carefully, she began tying knots at strategic points along the line before looping it around the heddle of her loom. Once she'd secured the warp threads, she sat and began to wrap the remaining cord onto her shuttle, and then swiftly flew the wooden tool across the loom, creating the weft.
When all had finished, a shimmering blanket remained. It was supple and soft, and looked to be between shades of white and gray. But when it hit a shaft of moon just so, it glimmered and sparkled like a thousand diamonds had been woven into it. The first sister took the blanket from the last, and stepped up to the crib of the infant they were there for.
"Here now, sweet babe," the Rozanica said, lifting the child into her arms and swaddling her with the new blanket. The baby fussed slightly, but only to sigh and give a small yawn before falling back to sleep. The Rozanica laid the girl back down in her crib and beckoned her sisters.
"Bela, what gift do you bestow upon this devotchka?" the youngest one asked of the eldest.
"I give this child the gift of wisdom and wit," Bela replied, touching a long finger to the baby's forehead. "May she be both bright and smart." A stream of white light pulsed from the old woman's hand, and the baby gurgled as if dreaming.
"And you, Nikita? What is your gift?" Bela asked, ignoring the third sister.
"My gift is love and loyalty," Nikita answered. She replaced her sister, but did not mimic. Instead, she unfolded the blanket, placing a spindly finger on the baby's newly-exposed chest, right above her heart. "She will be gentle with the innocent, and fiercely protect her friends from the immoral." With those words, Nikita's appendage glowed a deep scarlet, and the light transferred from the witch to the babe in the span of a breath.
After returning the blanket to its former state, Nikita stepped back next to Bela, allowing the third sister to take her place next to the child.
"And what is her fate, Chyornaya? What have you in store for her?" Bela's voice trembled only slightly, betraying her true fear for the helpless baby.
The sash of the window slammed down as the third sister began to convulse with energy. Power poured from her in waves, and bursts of black spurted from her outstretched palms.
"She will be tried," Chyornaya rasped, body quivering erratically. "She will be hurt, but she will survive. Again and again, she will survive. And she will be given a choice – she will choose her own Fate. Whatever her choice, she will survive. She is intelligent, yes, and loyal – but she is a Warrior. She will make her own path, and she will prosper. This is my will."
Streams of thick black smoke enveloped both their sister and the crib as Bela and Nikita watched in immobile shock. Though both women had lived nearly two millennia, they had never seen a display like this from their sister. Nor, truly, had they ever heard that kind of a reading.
"Choose her own Fate?" Nikita murmured as the fog dissipated.
"If it is as Naya wishes, we cannot intervene," Bela responded.
Nikita nodded, and grabbed hold of her wheel. With a sharp turn, she was gone. In the confusion of the smoke, Chyornaya had taken her loom and left as well. It was only Bela and the baby left, now. The wizened Goddess turned her hood back up, and crept over to the side of the crib.
The baby remained undisturbed, as if she'd been completely unaware that a major event was happening right beside her all night. Bela allowed herself a soft smile, and she smoothed back a tiny golden curl from the child's face.
"Rest, sweet Kanza," she murmured. "You will need your strength."
With a last look at the baby, Bela shook her head slightly and disappeared.
Kenzi squirmed, a tiny fist reaching out of her swaddle to stretch over her head. She was still innocent, and unaware of what was to come. The next two and a half decades would be tough on the girl, but it was as the Fates themselves had decreed – she would survive.