Disclaimers: All original property is owned by Showcase, and we do not infer that any characters, creations or the concept of 'Lost Girl' are our property and the following fan fiction has been written purely for entertainment purposes only.
Pairings: Bo/Lauren Set directly after our story "Faeral", the third story in an AU plot line.
Rating: M (Contains scenes of violence, sexuality and nudity)
Faery Tale: Chapter Twenty-One
By: The Rainbowwriters
Bo had been reduced to the role of 'observer', as the main area of the Dal was transformed from a bar into an impromptu over sized hospital room. The transition had been made in two waves; the first brought an entire replicated set of equipment for Kenzi from the compound, which was set up by technicians in the hurriedly cleared space; the second had finally brought Kenzi herself. The young woman being settled quickly into the medical super bed, many of the sensors built into it rather than having to be attached to the patient's body. The truth was the bed reminded Bo a little too much of Nadia's pod for her to be totally comfortable with it.
The succubus had tried to be more involved with getting Kenzi settled, but all of her requests had been so far denied. After all Bo had to admit that she didn't know anything about the medicines being added to Kenzi's IV, or about the machines that were being checked and programed. Her true concern was of course her best friend, but Kenzi was in a deep medically induced sleep and wasn't showing any signs of stirring.
Her roll of observer, helped her notice quickly that the harvester and her unusual animal bodyguard were missing, but something just told her that the strange woman would return when it was the right time.
All the while Trick stood silent and motionless behind the bar, glancing occasionally at Bo, his look unreadable. Eventually a tall, heavy set blonde man, who appeared to be middle aged, though Bo knew that meant nothing as he was fae so he could be forty or four hundred, approached the bar.
"I'm Dr. Trebecker, The Ash told me you asked for me by name but I don't recall having met you." He greeted both Bo and Trick with a nod.
"Dr. Lewis suggested you since she couldn't make it." Bo spelled out the reason for him being chosen, hoping he would understand how important his job was. "You're job is to keep Kenzi alive, The Ash did make that clear didn't he?"
"Indeed, he stressed that while I am here I take my orders from the representative of the Light, Mr. Fitzpatrick McCormick and that nothing that occurs here is to be discussed in any way out side of these walls." The other fae explained that indeed he had been given very clear instructions.
"Exactly, look after Kenzi." Bo looked from the man to the bed where her best friend was and was surprised by how long it took him to understand that he should go do his work. "Trick..." She finally turned to the bartender when they were alone. "As we have a few minutes, can you explain to me why finding out your visitor was Thistle Highbourne, made you look like you'd seen a ghost?"
"Not now Bo." Trick blatantly cut off the conversation and moved to usher all the technicians out of the Dal, leaving only the three of them and the patient within.
The Succubus couldn't hide her sense of outrage at just being blown off but as the door was sealed behind the last of the technicians, she wasn't surprised to hear the soft breeze announcing that true to her word Thistle had returned. Somehow her grandfather had known, and she wondered now what she'd missed.
Thistle, without her barghest guard, seemed to walk from out of nowhere into being. Mid-step, Thistle was already pulling off her cloak, she draped it over the end of the bar as she moved directly towards Kenzi's bedside.
"This is Kenzi." Bo moved over to stand right up beside her best friend's bed, looking down at her sadly before looking back up into Thistle's appraising red eyes.
The lithe auburn haired fae did a very slow circumnavigation of the table in the middle of the Dal and then stopped behind Kenzi's head and put a hand either side of Kenzi's neck about three inches off her skin.
"I could make it quick, simple, pain free." Red eyes panned up to the meet with Bo's, her tone questioning in an unreadable way.
"I think I was very clear that that wasn't an option." Bo hissed the words as she met the challenging look and didn't flinch in the slightest.
"You did but I thought I would allow you the chance to reconsider. After all, this offer is merciful, the option you favour is one of considerable pain and prolonged anguish." Thistle tried to help Bo see the truth in her words, her voice was once more even and calm as she continued to 'read' the succubus in all the ways that her Druidic powers allowed her too.
"What do you mean?" For the first time, Bo seemed to waver on her conviction to blindly trust 'removal' of the ghoul from Kenzi as the best option. "What is it that you have to do that causes so much pain?" She tried to get more details, as so far neither the Druid or Trick had been very forthcoming with details.
"You know nothing about what I do? About what it is my kind do?" The harvester asked the questions, her eyes moving over to fix on Trick for a second before she gave as soft shake of her head in admonishment. "To save your friend... I must tear both her essence and the essence of that which wrongfully inhabits her body out of it." She began simply but something about her tone underlined that simple was not what it really was. "I must then separate the two into their complete individual identities and then replace the one that belongs back into the vessel that should hold it, and seal that which does not in something else, or return it to where it came from." She summed up the process. "Do you know where this entity came from?" She asked of Bo.
"The Norn." Bo said the two words laden with anger and red eyes suddenly shifted to Trick, as her petite body stood tall suddenly next to Kenzi's bed.
"You brought me here to harvest that which already belongs to another?" She snarled at him and turned taking long strides towards the door.
"No, the Norn declared the ghoul was given to Kenzi as a gift. Kenzi did something rash in order to reclaim something promised to the Norn by another. The Norn relinquished that item and during the encounter the ghoul's jar was smashed, exposing Kenzi to it." Trick made the distinction quickly in a high excited voice, after all he would have never even made the call if there was questions of ownership.
The harvester paused in her retreat, drawing in a long breath. Very slowly Thistle turned again and looked at the two of them, almost appraising whether she had been right to even agree to look at Kenzi.
"Are there any more surprises that await me in this?" Thistle asked bluntly, her hand going to her thin hip to emphases that they should tell her now.
"Kenzi... well the thing in Kenzi, Septima... scratched someone else, another human." Bo put out the other important fact as she saw it. "I need them both free of this thing, I can't lose either of them."
This comment made not only Thistle look at Bo with an unreadable expression but Trick as well, from his place at the bar the Blood King spoke the succubus' name very quietly questioning her tactics right now.
"Septima scratched Lauren, she's infected with who knows what plagues already, the lab is trying to isolate what and treat her with what they can." Bo looked at her grandfather frowning at his reaction. "But Lauren's focus has been Kenzi, she didn't even realize she was hurt."
"I am afraid your other friend needs to find either a good doctor or a strong faith." The harvester summed up not knowing the irony of her words as she looked directly at Bo with an even stare. "I am a harvester not a healer, disease and contagions are things of the body, not of the soul."
"Lauren is a doctor, right now she is trying to create vaccines so that if any of Septima's contagions get into the human population we can keep thousands from dying." Bo understood what the fae was saying but still warred that there had to be something more that could be done. Lauren was already doing everything medically possible to help, couldn't the supernatural do its part to help her back. "I can't lose either of them." She reiterated feeling a flash of overwhelming panic and she hoped that she had managed to suppress the flash of blue that sparkled across her eyes.
"Why?" Thistle asked not missing a second of the electrified colour that glittered in through brown, the show of power bringing more curiosity to the harvester then fear. "Speak to me of your plea, your grandfather has already come to me on your behalf, but I would hear from you why I should save this human."
"What I'm supposed to say to you... other than please, save her if you can. Kenzi is more than just a human, she is an extra special one. She is my best friend, like a sister to me." Bo tried to express what she could to this enigma before her. "She was the first person to ever make me feel it was okay to be me, whatever I was."
"Like a sister you say." Thistle pulled her hands to her sides and then moved again to walk around the large bed, her eyes travelling over Kenzi's body before shifting to look towards Trick for a moment. "I had a sister." She paused at the foot of the bed. "She looked much like me, only her eyes were the colour of the setting sun, her hair as gold as ripened barley."
"No..." Trick's voice was a horrified whisper. "It can't be." He shook his head as he took a step back to press against the back wall of the bar.
"She loved to laugh and sing, she could charm the birds from the sky with just a smile." Red eyes now focused on Trick alone as Thistle began to step from the bed towards the bar.
"Your sister?" In a moment of understanding Bo's eyes flickered between the small fae and her grandfather, a cold sinking feeling filling her stomach.
"I swear to you Thistle Highbourne, I did not know." Trick shook his head as Thistle continued to slowly advance towards him. "I never wished the death of your sister..."
"Tara, her name was Tara." Thistle clarified cutting him off, her voice cold and hard. "And you may not have wished for it Blood King, but it was your hand that penned the warrant for my death, your hand that handed out gold coins in return for her head." She breathed in through her nose, her breathing slightly staggered. "Your law, written in fear and ignorance killed a fae that brought more love, more happiness than you can ever imagine." She eventually stopped her advance towards Trick. "And now here I stand a myriad of lifetimes later, with the heart of one of your kin in my hand." She glanced back at Bo. "You really expect me to save her Blood King, show mercy when you showed none?"
"No one would expect you to save her for him." Bo put forward her voice full of conviction, trying to take Thistle's focus away from Trick and the past. "But please save her for me. Do what you can to save her because you can spare my sister, because I didn't have anything to do with any of this history and neither did Kenzi." She pointed out furrowing her brow. "I'm not light or dark Thistle, I don't hunt down anyone unless they are using their powers to hurt and kill humans or generally trying to take over the world." She thought back to facing off with the Garuda for a moment. "I make my decisions based on the moments and the circumstances, which is all I can ask you to do for me right now, and for her." She motioned to Kenzi. "You have powers based around the soul, the ones she needs to have any chance of surviving this. Look at her and tell me that she doesn't deserve the chance to live, to be separated from this ghoul?"
Pulling her focus away from Trick, who was for his part looking totally distraught, Thistle back tracked to Kenzi's side and moved back up to close beside Bo. For the first time she reached out her hand and placed it on Kenzi's body, lying her palm against Kenzi's brow. Red eyes closed and then just as slowly opened as she pulled her hand back from the contact.
"Who bound her in this fashion?" She asked not looking away from Kenzi, instead she began once again to move around the table examining the young human's body more closely.
"Lauren, the one with the scratches, like I told you she's a doctor." Bo outlined wanting to give this woman as many reasons as she could to do something to help Lauren if she could.
"And yet you said that she was human." A frown graced the harvester's brow again. "This is fae technology." She stopped and seemed to look at Bo a little differently than before. "Just how many humans do you own, granddaughter of the Blood King?" Her voice held a slightly strange tone.
"I don't own any." Bo shook her head moving up to the bed so that Kenzi was in between herself and the harvester. "I don't believe any fae or human can own each other, it isn't right. Kenzi is my best friend, my sister... Lauren is..." She hesitated just imagining the look she was getting from her grandfather. "Lauren is my lover, my heart." She held red eyes that widened as she said the word. "I own neither of them, I just love them."
In a move that seemed almost odd for the so far composed and detached fae, Thistle Highbourne literally took a step back in surprise and raised her hand to cover her face, but the slight crinkling of skin at the edges of her eyes showed Bo that the fae was smiling.
"Forgive me." Thistle kept her head down, her face mostly covered as she composed herself. She cleared her throat and looked up again at Bo her 'game face' back in place. "You love them?" She said the words, the thread of a smiling threatening to pull at her top lip all the while even as she tried to control it.
"Haven't I made that clear? Kenzi is my sister, Lauren is my girlfriend." Bo was actually started to get upset at how it appeared the other fae was simply dismissing her claims as amusing. "I know that most fae, hell almost all of you, have this crazy idea that humans are only good as food or slaves, but I happen to think they are pretty amazing just on their own. Not only that my best friend is a human and I wouldn't change her for anything, which is why right now I am trying to get over you and your Harry Potter cloak of wind and you're Sci-Fi special effect red glowing eyes, and beg you to help her."
"This is what happens Blood King, when you mess with what should be." Red eyes again shifted to look at Trick. "It finds a way." She said letting a true smile grace her lips as she turned her head to look at him completely. "I will do what I do child." She turned back to look at Bo, her motions almost dizzying to the brunette. "But you need to hear, need to know why I do it." She focused solely on the succubus again, though she could feel and hear Trick moving, his hands gripping the bar, the tension in his body silently begging with her to stop. "I will do what I can to remove Septima from your friend because this is the purpose, the sole purpose of my kind. It is what a Harvester dedicates themselves to when they train and learn for half a century. A harvester takes a vow to rid the world of evil, to take from those who are innocent all that would taint and harm them. A harvester believes that the soul is sacred and that the most sacred of all souls are those of humans."
"You mean..." Bo felt her rising anger settle back down almost like she'd been dosed by a bucket of cold water. "Do you think humans are equal to fae?"
"Equal? At the very least." Thistle nodded and then looked at Trick. "What reason did you give your granddaughter for the slaughter of my kind old man?"
"Necromancy." Bo had the word out before Trick could do anything to mitigate the conversation.
For the first time ever Thistle laughed, but it wasn't a bright pleasant sound, it was a dark sharp bark filled with anger.
"This is what you told her? You tried to justify the extinction order of a race on the actions of fifty, maybe less?" Thistle shook her head and looked at Bo. "Whilst telling her nothing of what you truly feared out us. The fact that we lived with and openly among these..." She paused and almost reverently brushed her hand down Kenzi's cheek. "Beautiful people, befriending them, helping them, even loving them, maybe more than we did our own kind."
"Bo, please." Trick finally spoke up. He had moved out from behind the bar and was coming towards them. "She is twisting the truth, fusing lies with truth." He reached to turn Bo towards him. "You must understand it was a different time, the world a different place, the humans could not be equal to us, we are the Fae." His dark eyes looked at Bo pleading to her for some level of understanding.
"You know my opinion on that topic." Bo flashed him a look, remembering all of the trauma about Lauren's worth that had been overshadowed by Dyson's actions. "Humans are equal to the fae." She it spelled out for him, remembering this was an age old argument but it had a different spice to it this time. After all, shouldn't he somehow understand now?
"They are, what they are Bo." Trick kept his voice controlled. "Some of them have proven loyal and brave, special." He chose his words carefully. "But they are not Fae, not equal, they are..."
"Say it, say it old man." Thistle snarled injecting herself back into their conversation. "They are food." Her hand cupped Kenzi's cheek tenderly. "A race on this planet for Fae to devour and toss aside." Her red eyes positively glowed.
"They are not Fae." Trick balled his hands up at his sides. "And I will not partake in this debate any longer." He turned angrily and moved towards the back room entrance.
Bo couldn't help but just watch as Trick left feeling something inside of her twist uncomfortably. Though she couldn't take the time to internalize this, she knew somehow that a fundamental truth had just been presented to her. Her grandfather would never value humans like she did, never see them as truly equal.
"What has happened between our families will not taint what I do for your friend." Thistle pulled her hand back from Kenzi's cheek and moved around the bed again giving Bo some space. "You compassion for her is inspiring, though I have to be honest after my first assessment of her..." She paused and frowned. "She will have to lose the arm."
"What?" Bo whirled around and followed Thistle, not wanting any part of Kenzi's brain to hear this part. "Lose her arm?"
"For what I can read it must be where the soul contact was made and a rift was created." The harvester explained what she thought Bo would understand, picking up the limb and frowning as she ran the fingrs of her other hand over it. "It would be my fear that was I to leave it, that I would be leave her with the equivalent of an open wound, but one that leads to her soul not her blood body." She tried to explain more. "Since she walks in the world of fae, it would leave her mortally vulnerable."
"I kind of understand but..." Bo felt as if all the air had been sucked out of her body as she looked back at Kenzi. "Is there any way to save it, she's only 21?"
"You really do care for her." Thistle again looked at Bo and smiled a truly genuine smile as she made the assessment softly. After all, within only moments of being told the need for the limb to be amputated, Bo was fighting against the idea blindly unable to accept any trauma that wasn't completely unavoidable.
"I do.. I see the way you... look at me, look through me..." Bo held out her hand. "And I know you know what I am but..." She kept it held out. "Do whatever you do to look inside and see that what I am telling you is the honest truth. I was raised by humans, I love humans, Kenzi in particular. She is a part of me."
"To offer your hand to a harvester could be a foolish thing, your grandfather certainly hasn't taught you all he should have." Thistle looked at Bo's outstretched hand for a long moment. "And I do not need to touch you to know that you do indeed care for this young one." She glanced down again at Kenzi. "So put your hand down." She encouraged her softly. "And explain to me more about this other human you spoke of, explain to me how an unaligned succubus has two human friends and has access to equipment like this." She offered Bo the information she wanted most to understand as she continued her assessment of Kenzi.
"This is all Lauren... who is not my friend Thistle." Bo didn't know why but she felt the need to make this distinction, after all she could hardly ever say that she put Kenzi and Lauren in the same category together. "She is my lover, and the head of the light fae's laboratory compound... she is enslaved to the Ash."
"I see." Thistle glanced up only briefly. "She has considerable skill, these bindings will help your friend endure the ceremony I must put her through, they will secure her body as it fights the spasms of possession." She summed up. "I must ask though, is it not dangerous to love the property of The Ash?"
"It can be, but it's complicated." Bo found herself making the admission without really analyzing what she was saying, more that she was just watching Thistle continue her assessment. "She was lied to in order to secure her pledge, Kenzi..." She looked to her best friend. "Is supposed to be conducting an investigation to prove that she has been mistreated and so that her freedom can be restored."
"Complicated indeed." Thistle nodded softly and then glanced to where Trick had disappeared into his back annex.
"As you can guess, my grandfather neither approves nor condones my relationship with Lauren." Bo sighed. "He just doesn't get how much I love her."
"It saddens my heart to see that time had not softened his heart, nor changed his understanding." Thistles' words seemed genuine. "I will need time to assess how to proceed to help your friend, I am sure though that you feel you need to stay with her, I can honestly tell you there is little you can do for her, until I have a better understanding and a plan for the removal."
"Actually there is something else I need to take care of..." Bo looked at Kenzi. "I know I may seem stupid and young but... if you hurt her on purpose..." She narrowed her eyes at the harvester needing there to at some level be this understanding.
"I know what you will do, maybe more than you do." Thistle replied somewhat cryptically.
-x-
"Trick? Trick?" Bo moved down quickly into the Blood King's private quarters, not sure what he would be doing by now to 'occupy' himself elsewhere. With any luck, his distraction could keep him busy and away from Thistle as she worked upstairs.
Unexpectedly, the older fae was sitting in his high backed comfortable chair, cradling a large glass of some dark coloured liquor, the room in darkness apart from the table lamp that burned on the desk a way off over his right shoulder.
"Trick." Bo stopped a few feet in front of him, held almost in place by the odd contemplative look on his face.
"I don't have the answers you seek." He didn't look up at her, instead he just focused on raising the glass to his lips and taking a sip.
"Are you sure you even know the questions?" Bo challenged him softly, not sure what exactly he'd been expecting her to say.
"You want to know how I could do it, how I could sign off on an order that I knew would mean the slaughter of fae who had never, would never involve themselves in dealing of necromancy and similar darkness." He looked miserably down into his glass. "You want to know how, I as a King, could have ever though that a cull was the right way to handle any problem that I and my people faced." He took in a slow breath. "You want to know how these hands could turn over a purse full coin in exchange for a severed head, clearly not knowing for sure who it was."
"What I really want to know most Trick is would you do it again?" Bo whispered the actual question that burned inside her hotter than others. She knew the past was complicated, it always was, a web of interlocking views and motivations. A concrete outcome, that though historical, the reasons behind it were as fluid as the future sometimes. "Would you make the mistake twice?"
"Your question is based on the assumption that I believe the first time I made the decision that it was a mistake." Trick pointed out as he leaned forward to place his glass on a smaller end table by the side of the chair. "Which is not true." He summed up shaking his head. "I regret that the decision had to be made, but I do not regret making it." He pointed out the distinction he wanted to be clear about. "And I was the only one in the position to do so." He breathed out somewhat stiffly. "Would I make the same decision again tomorrow if it were mine to make, I cannot say." He shook his head.
"Then I don't have any more questions Trick, because we will never agree on the fundamental issue. No one has the right to make that decision, to exterminate a type of fae because of any fear or because they won't abide by one of your little rules." Bo shook her head almost defiant to his 'royal' mannerisms. "And to exterminate them because they saw value in the humans that you couldn't... when you yourself admit you cannot see the soul the way they see it, cannot see their magical world." She shook her head again. "There is a word for that, its called a holocaust."
"Now is not the time or the place for this Bo, we need what the harvester can do." He rested his hand on the glass as he obviously tried to dumb down his flare reaction of anger to Bo's words. "I can see how, with your up bringing and your limited understanding you would say such things, but that does not make them true." He pointed out.
"Well they always say the winner writes his own history." Bo just couldn't stand the condescending look she seemed to be getting right now. "Truth is I came down here to see if you still had the Abath horn?"
"For Lauren." Trick breathed out another barely restrained sigh as he released his grip on the glass and pushed off chair moving off towards the vault. "It won't cure her, you know that." He spoke as he walked.
"I know, but it will help her fight longer until her lab can create a cure." Bo pointed out the way she had been thinking the horn was of use. "Unless you know other cures?" She made sure to ask the question directly.
"I can look." His eyes were on Bo as he came out carrying the wrapped horn. "The plagues carried by ghouls never truly affected the fae, little effort was made..." He stopped realizing that this probably wasn't something that needed to be added to the discussion at this point. "I will look and ask around." He adapted his initial response and held it out to her. "But the horn should help her endure a little longer."
-x-