A/N: Hello readers! Thanks for being so patient while I edited this chapter. It's so very integral to the story that I was a little bit of a perfectionist about it. My sincerest apologies! Reviews are appreciated. XO, Coco
Chapter Soundtrack:
Where is the Edge, Within Temptation
Forgiven, Within Temptation
Chapter 38 - Ban-draoidhe Bàn (The White Witch)
O brothers mine, take care! Take care!
The great white witch rides out to-night.
Trust not your prowess nor your strength,
Your only safety lies in flight;
For in her glance there is a snare,
And in her smile there is a blight.
The great white witch you have not seen?
Then, younger brothers mine, forsooth,
Like nursery children you have looked
For ancient hag and snaggle-tooth;
But no, not so; the witch appears
In all the glowing charms of youth.
Her lips are like carnations, red,
Her face like new-born lilies, fair,
Her eyes like ocean waters, blue,
She moves with subtle grace and air,
And all about her head there floats
The golden glory of her hair.
- an excerpt from "The White Witch," James Weldon Johnson
Mother and daughter met each other's stare equally – both incensed with fury and offense. A cold Samhain[1] breeze entered the bedchamber from the opened window, ruffling feathers on rigidly held wings. The pair held each other's gaze as if in a contest to see who would wilt first. For the time being, it was a stalemate.
Maleficent snarled menacingly through clenched teeth at the insolence of her youngest. It was the child's fourteenth name day, and she'd left her near-constant post at Diaval's side to wake the injured girl sweetly. Her once saccharine and shy child had growled like a vicious animal to scamper behind a tapestry upon the door opening, refusing to come out no matter how she called and cooed softly.
It was true that Isobel's slow descent into darkness had not gone unnoticed, nor was it without reason. Since the moment she was born many had written her off as the second girl born to an agnatic kingdom, but her Mother knew a kindred heart when she saw it. Quiet, bookish and sweetly innocent to a fault, it was no surprise that the Princess was so misjudged. So then, it was truly no wonder that the response to transgressions against her were met with such irrational emotion.
Her responding actions as a child had been to cling to Maleficent like a barnacle, or cry until the towering faerie was coaxed into withholding punishment. As she grew older and more jaded, the tears had been replaced by swift and burning hatred against whomever dared to sin against her. To that end, Maleficent understood Bel better than anyone else in the entire world. Luna may have been her doppelgänger in appearance, but Isobel was a piece of her very heart and soul. It was not a coincidence that she had hovered protectively over her snow-white child in a vain attempt to shield the tender heart from being pierced by the sting of betrayal, pain, or evil. Maleficent knew well what the result would be if it ever came to pass.
It still did not mean that her own heart did not burn with hurt and indignation when from beneath the tapestry Isobel had ordered her to leave the room, as if her own mother was a chambermaid. Rushing forward, Maleficent had thrown up the tapestry and dragged the churlish princess out. Her reward had been the flash of glowing eyes, and gleaming talons as they struck out to claw at her arms.
And so, here they were. Isobel hissed venomously as tears ran down her sharp cheeks in response to Maleficent's snarl, but her wings and shoulders began to tremble. She was frightened, so very frightened. It was like looking at a mirror in the night – Maleficent could see herself plainly, but only the most shadowed parts. The darkness was taking over Isobel's heart.
Maleficent's heart broke at that. She turned around, cutting short the contest of wills.
Isobel shoved her roughly, eliciting a gasp of dismay from the faerie Queen. As she turned around once more to restrain her disobedient daughter, she was met with the sight of the tapestry being thrown down again over the lump of a body.
"Get out!" Isobel wailed.
Seething, Maleficent rubbed at the raw scratches on her forearms. "When does this end, Isobel Yvaine? You have done nothing but scare the wits out of the castle staff that enter your room with food since you refuse to join us for meals. You've yelled at your other mother for looking at your face too long when all she wanted to do was see that you were truly all right when you finally awoke."
Her voice raised in volume as she went down the list, stalking towards the tapestry. "Your sister misses you terribly, and Diaval has asked for you but you've refused to come out of this forsaken room!" Maleficent's hand came up to caress at her own throat, surprised that so many words had flooded from her lips at once.
Jagged edged talons curled around the edge of the tapestry. The embroidered wall hanging slid forebodingly slow to the side to reveal Isobel once more, her face a picture of loathing. "When does it end, Mother?" she whispered caustically. "Have you seen what they've done to me? I'm hideous! They've taken everything: My twin, my beauty, and now my truest love. Caitriona is gone, and don't think I didn't notice that no sentries have exited the keep to go after her in over a week." Accusation dripped from her tongue like acid. "It ends when they are dead."
Maleficent stepped back, her nostrils flaring and eyes widening at the exchange of information. "I can't very well send an entire battalion to mac Selbaig's home to raid it Isobel, no matter how much I suspect his involvement. Alexander scoped the estate for days in heavy disguise – she's not there. And besides… your truest love? I hesitate to agree with you on that subject. Caitriona was Sola's heart."
Mentally, she added 'and a distraction for you.' Maleficent had indeed sent other spies to the other councilors estates as well, especially those whom sided often with mac Selbaig. The raven-haired girl had vanished. This she didn't tell her daughter.
"And Sola is dead. Caitriona is mine." Isobel snapped, a severity coming over her face. It made the irritated, red iron-burn scars stand up in harsh relief over her sharp cheekbone and furled brow.
"I see," Maleficent retorted softly. The very idea of Caitriona mac Selbaig being tossed around like a possession to be owned made her suddenly ill. The poor mortal girl's own father treated her as such. Wars had been fought over women many times before in both human and faerie history. The Earth had cried numerous times for it – Her rivers running red with the blood of the fallen.
This was a dangerous situation, like a forest that was heady with pitch and sap from a profoundly rainy autumn. Winter would bring freezing temperatures, snapping the heavy branches made weak by the weight and killing the trees.
Standing before her was the most dangerous catalyst of all, ready to happily dance around the frozen carcasses… for a woman.
Reaching her hands slowly forward in a gesture of peace, Maleficent's voice was beseeching. "Revenge never works if done hastily and in anger, Isobel. I know this well."
"Says the woman who hurls curses at a baby and fate hands her true love on a fookin' silver platter," Isobel spat.
Undeterred by the show of spite, Maleficent continued to inveigle Isobel back into a semblance of rationality. "That's fair," she acceded. "It's also true that I know what it's like to be regarded as ugly, and monstrous. I can still taste the shame of being struck with these cursed horns… the agony of my wings being stolen off of my very back with a saw-chain. I understand, Isobel. Let me help you."
Isobel straightened, and held her chin up arrogantly. She refused to be treated as a child any longer, and felt another layer of ice coat her deadened heart as she consciously began to sever the bond between herself and her staunchest defender in this life. "It's too late for help, Mother. Even yours."
Upon overhearing her mother telling both her mama and Diaval some of the morning's happenings inside of Isobel's bedchamber as she walked by the familiar's sick room, Luna had squared her shoulders and set her teeth. She didn't stay long outside the room, not one to spy.
Ignoring the protest of her back, she waddled down the spiral stairway to the kitchens. Only four months through her seven-month pregnancy, Luna still felt enormous. Alexander had told her on many occasion how beautiful he found her belly rounded with child, but it only made her feel self-conscious. Still, the feeling of life growing inside of her was a calming influence to the young woman, a veritable source of joy. She grinned proudly as she passed a few councilors along her way, subtly placing a palm to the top of her burgeoning abdomen and meeting their curious stares with a look of triumph.
Entering the kitchens, Luna's smile widened further as the little mortal women sprinted over to her, especially the young ones. They'd cooed and fussed over her for the past month the royal family had been in residence. Human women loved babies, and she'd used that influence shamelessly to raid the cupboards and cellars for snacks between meals. Normally, the head cook would have found such picking from the stores a bother, but the portly woman simply smiled these days and adjusted the inventory accordingly. Sometimes, she'd even leave a plate of blessedly salty bacon out for the Princess to find on a late-night snack jaunt, well aware that Luna did not take meat during meals with Queen Maleficent out of deference and respect.
A rasher of the cured meat was promptly stuffed into Luna's palm by the cook, the woman's face alight with happiness at a daytime visit from the beautiful Princess. "So, your Highness… News from up top?" she queried.
Ah, gossip. Another thing that human women loved, Luna had come to learn. A pleasant look crossed her face after she'd munched the piece of bacon. "The same, I'd suppose. Nobody's died yet," she laughed mirthlessly, attempting at a joke. Suddenly, her emotions swung the opposite direction and Luna found herself melancholy beyond reason, tears dripping from her eyes.
Those that had experienced pregnancy in the room shared knowing looks, and the head cook patted a fat hand gently onto the Princess's shoulders to ease her into a chair. "Easy, milady. It'ae be oo'right," the woman soothed.
Luna sniffled, smiling gratefully for the comfort. "I'm not here for myself today. It's Isobel's name day and she's not had her supper yet, poor thing. Not even a party," she whispered. It wasn't entirely true that nobody had tried to bring Bel food, but she wasn't about to air the entire basket of her family's dirty laundry to the staff.
At that, the cook's chubby face turned upwards to stare through the ceiling in the direction Luna knew the main keep to be. The mortal's face paled, and she gulped. "Aye then. Even she mus' be fed too," she murmured, and set to bustling around the kitchen with the other ladies to assemble a tray of food.
It pained Luna to see the human women's reaction to the very mention of Isobel, let alone in passing about her sister having to eat. Were they so very spineless that Bel eating scared them so? As she felt the beginnings of anger creasing at her eyes, Luna took a deep breath and focused on relaxing her face into calm. She'd been trained long and to the pain by the Unseelie never to reveal her emotions or motives – it gave one the advantage in an exchange, and forced the other party into truthfulness when they were not bound to it by their very nature. Humans could be vile, lying creatures. The goodness in her heart warred with the logic in her mind when faced with these confusing interactions with 'her people.'
Once the tray had been properly assembled, Luna stood quickly and ignored the slight dizziness caused by doing so. Taking the tray from the surprised cook's hands, she muttered her thanks and began to ascend the stairs again.
The women called after her to walk slowly, and Luna sneered in annoyance when she was sure they could no longer see her face. What was it with her mothers, Alexander and the staff alike treating her as if she was spun glass? It was beyond infuriating.
Higher and higher she climbed the stairs, ignoring the whispers, bows and curtsies of courtiers along the way. It must be odd to see their princess carrying a tray of food, but that wasn't Luna's problem today – it was solely their own idiocy about how one should behave, and she refused to have time for it.
Pausing outside Isobel's chamber door to place the food on a chair and hold a stitch in her side, Luna wheezed. The confounded baby was rolling in her belly, agitated and kicking. Throwing her head back, she rubbed at her stomach. "Hush… hush you naughty little thing," she teased, willing the babe to still once more with glowing hands.
It did quiet down, but nestled close to her spine and away from her soothing hands. Luna tsked at it – her back always ached when the bairn laid this way. She imagined it was being unreasonable about her request and chuckled, feeling silly at the thought. Babies couldn't reason, let alone a baby in the womb.
Grasping the doorknob, she pushed with her other hand to gain entrance. The door wouldn't budge. Luna tried again, but to no avail. Stepping backwards, she stared at the bedchamber door as if it were a puzzle.
A hook on the doorframe bore a ring of three bronze keys – Isobel had been locked inside. As if to answer her question, Bel whimpered loudly from inside the room.
Scowling at the thought of her dear sister being locked away all alone, Luna snatched the keys off the hook and jammed the first one into the lock, fumbling to turn it. "Hang on, Bel! I'm coming…" she called.
As the door clunked open, Luna withdrew the key and hung the ring back up. Forgetting the tray on the chair, she rushed into the bedchamber, skidding to a stop at the edge of the bed when she saw Isobel's wings and back. Her beloved sister was weeping and trying to hide behind her wings from whoever entered. Looking around, Luna noticed that the windows were shut, and probably locked as well.
"Oh, Isobel… What happened? What did you do?" Luna sighed.
"I frighten people, even Mother. I'm evil, Lu. My face…" Isobel sobbed.
Seeing the blue and purple streaked wings shaking gently, Luna reached out to comfort them, but pulled back. Isobel didn't like to be touched anymore, she reminded herself. "Is that why you're locked in here?" she asked.
Abruptly, the wings stilled and stiffened. "Aye. Mother doesn't want me going after Caitriona," Isobel growled. She'd also raked her mother's arms and pushed her, but Luna didn't need to know that.
The mercurial display made shivers run down Luna's spine, and her brows furrowed. "Mother locked you in here?"
Faster than lightning during a summer storm on the Moors, Isobel leapt from the bed. "Solas a mhúchadh. Dofheicthe mar oíche,"[2] she breathed out while doing so – her figure turning nearly invisible.
Luna watched the glamour spread like water over Isobel's skin, leaving only a shimmering edge to her form like the gleam of a beach's waves at sunset. It gave her a fright, and she grasped at her belly where the baby thrashed once more. Her sister advanced on her backward path, and Luna's heart thundered in her chest. Glamour this advanced was the work of the Unseelie. "Where'd you learn such a spell?!" she yelped.
Isobel's disembodied voice sounded like the wind just before a storm, with an edge of exasperation. "Nobody taught me. I made it up when I was just a wee girl." Pushing past Luna, her watery figure rushed out of the bedchamber door and down the hall.
Racing after her, Luna stopped to look around as soon as she reached the hallway. The figure of her sister was gone, vanished into thin air in the darker light. A guard was thrown aside much farther down, yelling his astonishment.
"Isobel!" Luna screamed. "Isobel, come back!"
Maleficent's palms cradled a pale, wrinkled and weak hand between them as she bent over the edge of a bed. This had once been Sola's bedchamber, and Diaval had purposely been set up here when he arrived. If she could contain all of her life's sadness in one room to lock it away forever once done, it would be a blessing.
Diaval was propped up on the bolster pillow, grinning. His once raven-black hair had faded to gray and white, the skin around his scarred cheeks sagging with age. "Y'know, if all I had to do to get you to hold my hand was prepare to die, I'd ha'e done it long ago," he joked before hacking a cough, wincing from the pain.
A lone tear slipped over the faerie's severe cheekbone, and she reached up to wipe it away. "Please," she whispered, almost pleadingly. "Please let me reverse it."
Musing his mouth as if thinking what to say, Diaval looked away from her sad beauty. The curtains looked particularly interesting, framing the evening's setting sun. Choosing to ignore her request, he changed the subject. "I donnae what I was thinkin', asking you to change me back to die as a man. I'd always thought the humans weak for moanin' and gripin' about being old. Now I kin why so many of them off themselves. It hurts, Maleficent. Donnae make it harder on me now."
"What hurts? I can send for Laurentina to help…" she worried, trying to slip her hand from his. He closed his fist around her willowy fingers then, tugging her gently back down.
"Donnae fret. I hear it's normal," Diaval rasped from the exertion of pulling her back. "I donnae want Laurentina," he retorted grumpily. "Stay."
The normally stoic faerie Queen seemed to sag under the weight of the request. "I will stay," she whispered, seemingly to convince herself. "I'll stay until the bitter end. You know that."
Through the open doorway, Diaval spied a shimmering. His face lit up as he realized who it was underneath that sneakiness – he'd been asking for his favorite of Maleficent's children since he arrived. The little imp had figured out a way to venture from her room without having her injured face seen. If there was anything Diaval knew about children (and he knew a lot,) it was that when they were trying to meet you halfway, you should let them. Making it seem like he didn't realize Isobel was in the chamber was difficult, but he turned his attention away from the gleaming mass that darted behind a chifforobe.
"So, about Isobel," he spoke back to Maleficent, "Ye' must convince her that the scars she bears don' diminish her beauty. Yours only made ye' stronger, right? Ye' learned to live with the horns, to walk with your stick. In the end, everything worked out fine. I like me scars. It makes me feel brave to 'member all the times I survived havin' the stuffin' pounded outta me."
Maleficent's eyes were glassy as she sniffed and looked away from him. "I don't see her accepting them as anything more than the ugliness she feels inside, Diaval," she snapped.
The raven-man frowned, squeezing her hand. "Give 'er a chance, Maleficent. It's not been long."
Shaking her unbound hair around her shoulders, Maleficent sighed. "You don't understand. I had to… I had to lo-"
Outside the bedchamber, Luna was yelling for Alexander and the sergeant-at-arms. Maleficent snatched her hand from Diaval and fluttered over to the doorway. "Luna! Whatever is the matter?" she demanded.
The Princess seemed distraught to Diaval's now-feeble eyes, but he could hear the distress plainly in her voice. "Oh Mother! She's gone! I unlocked the door to give her supper and…" Her voice choked off into a despondent wail.
It all became clear to Diaval, then. 'Shifty little thing,' he thought, looking back at the chifforobe with admiration. 'Just like her mother.'
He decided not to inform Maleficent or Luna of Isobel's whereabouts. If she needed to carry on her journey in this life, who were they to stop her? As he lay dying, many things had become clearer to the raven. He'd been held back his entire life – first for a life debt, and then for unrequited love. It wasn't so much that he begrudged Maleficent for her hold on him; Gods knew he enjoyed being by her side for so many years. But then again, Isobel ought not to be forced away behind a locked door, either. She deserved the chance to fly into the night and find Caitriona. She deserved her chance at love.
Aurora's imposing voice rose over the clamoring discussion between Maleficent and Luna, pleading with them to be calm. Alexander had made his way down the hall and was of a mind to do everything but be peaceful, fidgeting with his sword nervously. Diaval swallowed, prepared to lie directly to his former Mistress and family to protect the little Halfling.
"Eh! D'you think I could pass to the next world in some peace o'er here!" he yelled, sputtering from the force of it.
The group stopped their arguing at once and turned to him. Aurora looked apologetic, and the petite faerie adjusted her heavy crown that had slipped forward during her scrambling from the council chambers. "We're so very sorry, Diaval. We'll take this discussion elsewhere," she said measuredly while glancing at the rest of her family. Taking Maleficent's hand, she made to lead her wife away from the room.
Maleficent tugged back, looking back at Diaval with agonized eyes. "You don't mind?"
Raising his hands off the blankets a bit, he motioned for her to go. "I donnae mind for a bit. Go an' find her, and then come back."
Nodding her agreement, Maleficent reached for the door and pulled it shut behind her. The yelling began afresh outside the room, but it lowered in volume as the group moved away and down the hall.
Once he could no longer hear them, Diaval peered back at the chifforobe. "The coast is clear, you scamp," he muttered. He heard the faerie language chanted, and the glimmering liquid-like disguise fell from Isobel as she peeked at him. His heart clenched at the sight of her beautiful face marred by welts and scars, but Diaval kept his face neutral.
"Why did you do that?" Isobel asked skittishly, her eyes darting from him to the hallway and back again.
"I've ne'er lied direct to yer mother's face before. Seemed like a fun idea," he shrugged and then opened his arms for a hug.
A sweet giggle escaped the darkly painted lips of the Princess, and for a moment Diaval's heart soared. He could always bring out the best in bad-tempered faeries. Isobel folded herself into his embrace, her downy wings tickling the skin of his hands.
Pushing Isobel back, Diaval knew that urgency was needed for her to escape undetected. "Ye' can go out my window. Can ye' fly with that invisibility spell o'er ye'?"
"I can," Isobel smiled, her voice a tad haughty. "But once I'm out there, I need to hide my wings. Nobody out in the highlands should recognize me on account of my face, but my wings…" she paused, going back behind the wardrobe. She pulled out Maleficent's battle coat and held it up for approval.
Diaval whistled. "A bit heavy and dark for a lass as pretty as ye', don'cha think?"
Isobel shook her head. "What I plan to do, I need Mother's strength for."
"It's not your Mother's strength ye' need. Ye' have yer own, Bel my sweet," the raven murmured his disagreement.
Rolling her eyes, Isobel sat on the edge of his bed once more. A small girl replaced the young woman momentarily when she spoke. "Does it hurt, Diaval?"
"Pshah!" he waved her off. "I'm fairly certain I'll be here when you get back, totin' Caitriona." He met her gaze, a look of understanding passing between them. Still, it hurt Diaval to know that he was lying to the faerie's face. Isobel didn't deserve his lies, but he didn't want to hold her here any longer than he should. "Go on, then," he pointed towards the window.
Sliding the coat over one arm to carry with her, Isobel turned towards the window, sparing a loving glance back at him. "I love you, pretty bird," she told him, her wildly glittering eyes gentling a moment.
Diaval noticed then that she'd tied Sola's sword around her waist, hidden beneath a white overskirt. The scabbard was highly detailed, and he'd know it anywhere. It dragged a bit on the floor, peeking out.
"Love you too, pretty girl," he whispered as she murmured her incantation once more. Isobel slid invisible as night into the darkness, the curtains wafting in the wake of the breeze created from her wings.
On the ridges of a highland hillock, two men walked drunkenly home from the village. They led their horse behind them, singing gaily.
From behind a large boulder, a short woman with gleaming white-blonde hair stepped out. Her black leather coat was fine, and edged on the shoulder with black feathers, but her face was grotesque.
"Michty me!" the first of the lads yelped, tugging at the steed to halt.
His friend looked at the young woman and proclaimed loudly, "Saints alive, wench. Yer ugly mug gave me a fright."
Inhaling deeply, the woman seemed to glow in the dark of the night, and her eyes gleamed with anger. "Tell me gentlemen, do you follow the old Gods or the new?" she inquired, her voice like a song meant to draw the very deepest truths from their lips.
The first man's face was suspicious, but his friend's lips were loose when he'd partaken too much drink. "Why, the Lord is our good Shepherd, lass. None of that faerie nonsense crosses my doorstep."
Without warning, the gleam of a sword flashed across the distance between the woman and the gentlemen. Their chests bloomed red, and the men grabbed at their slash wounds to fall on the grasses.
"Why do you do this, you witch?" the first called out, feeling himself weaken as he bled out.
Kicking the man away from the stallion, Isobel grinned wickedly. "I needed your horse. I reward you for your service to the Fair Folk."
Sheathing Sola's sword once more, she mounted the steed and galloped over the ridge.
The men could die alone for their sins.
[1] Samhain – November, specifically November 1st until sunset.
[2] Solas a mhúchadh. Dofheicthe mar oíche – Extinguish the light. Invisible as night.