House: Gryffindor
Year: 6
Category: Standard
Prompt: [Time Period] Pre-Founders Era
Word Count: 1157
Woman of the Woods
She knows she is different.
Injuries heal quickly, those that even manage to touch her in the first place. The hardest jobs pass her over, as do the eyes of those who assign them. The flowers in the garden bloom a little more strongly after she's been there.
These are tiny details. Almost unnoticeable. Except for that someone does notice.
He has been in service of the Lord for much longer than she has. She is a child, he is already going grey at the temples. His voice is calm as he takes her aside one day to explain her gift of magic.
Her eyes grow wide as he speaks, thinking of stories she's heard. Wizards are powerful beings, stronger than any could rightly say, and could she learn to do that as well? The Lord has a Wizard that serves him, and the Wizard is treated much better than any simple servant, such as herself. Could it be that someday she, too, could be like that?
But no.
He rests a hand on her shoulder, explaining that it is only the most powerful of Wizards who can claim such a position. Those who have traveled far and studied much of magic and its uses.
She has no ability to travel, no wealthy patron who will sponsor her.
All the answers of the universe have been dropped into her lap. And yet she can reach none of them.
But that isn't strictly true, either, because this servant who found her will teach her all he knows.
It doesn't take long.
He has been around longer than she, but he has only received the minimum of teaching, and can only pass on what he knows. She is fast to learn, eager to absorb all she can of this new power. It's far too soon that he has reached the edge of his knowledge.
She can now make herself unnoticed as she walks the streets. She can cause the plants in the gardens to grow much stronger, much more quickly. She can repair broken items by running a finger along the seam.
It isn't enough.
She watches the Lord's Wizard, sometimes, and how his magic works. The Wizard has tools and she does not, but that does not mean that she cannot adapt what he does for herself.
It is then she begins to understand the truth that has been lurking just in front of her since the start. She is powerful. Much more so than the fellow servant who found her, and even the Wizard who parades about the castle, demanding the others obey his commands.
She learns from this Wizard how to cast illusions that ensnare the senses. She learns to call things to herself from across the room. She learns to cause a man to fall asleep from a distance, without laying a hand on him.
This Wizard, for all that he props himself up with his fancy words and showy ways, can not teach her any more. She is stronger than he is.
It is then that she finally sets out, thieving food from the kitchens and a horse from the stables. Illusions woven in the minds of those around her ensure none will come looking. Her first teacher is the only one to know the truth, and he sees her off with both pride and resignation.
At first she wanders, but eventually she learns to listen. The woods whisper words of power to those with the patience to hear them. The animals speak with distinct voice and words to those who deign to comprehend them. And in towns, she hears tales of others with gifts such as hers.
She never spends long with the others she finds. She trades tips and tricks with them, but that is all. The longest she takes is a few months with an old woman living on the edge of a forest who has learned to mix the bounty of the forest into creations of life and death.
But most of her time is spent wandering the woods themselves, listening, learning, becoming more. She knows she is getting older now, but her time with the wild magic keeps her young, strong, powerful. The world is vast, and now it is open to her.
Only it isn't.
Because in the eyes of the world, she is a woman. Weak. Helpless.
It's an image she cultivates on occasion, but she prefers to look as she does. As she is. A being of strength. When her looks are not enough to turn away bandits and the like, the fact that she can throw them across a clearing without laying a hand on them usually is.
She could rule this world. But these barbarians are beneath her. The woods are where she truly belongs.
She finds other children in her travels, too, unknowingly gifted like she once was. She teaches them what she can, but she never stays for long, continuing onwards. For a long time, she has no destination in mind, no real idea where she is going.
Then, she meets him.
He is a Lord, like the one she once worked for. His looks are more striking than handsome, and he is not gifted like she is.
It is not love, what they have.
She wants someone with wealth, to care for her. He wants an heir, and desires to possess the wild woman from the woods. She allows him to think he has caught her, entranced her, and wonders if he knows it is the other way around.
She lives in a castle then, wanting for nothing, but finds herself often staring out at the forest that for so long taught her. It calls to her, tempts her, and she knows that she has only scraped the surface of the deeper magics that exist out there.
But patience. She must have patience.
Because she has seen things out there, in those woods, whispers of things that will come. Her son will be born soon, and he will go on to do great things, not in the woods, but in the world. For the children she could teach and the many more she couldn't.
She will teach him, of course. Stay with him until he knows all that she does, of the wily ways of magic and the world. Until he can listen as she can.
And when he can, she will leave this world and return to the woods, to learn more of the magics still hidden to her. She dreams of that, of the trees beckoning, inviting her deeper within. The danger that surrounds it only makes it that much more appealing.
But first, first her son must come. She will name him for the first animal she heard whispering to her in those early days in the forest. The name it whispered to her when she first began whispering back.
She will name him for the snake.
Salazar.