* Trigger Warning: This is the most traumatic flashback to Lorcan's childhood because it involves really horrific child abuse and he's only four. I questioned whether I should even post this, but I decided it's a vital piece of why he has become who he is. It also contributes subconsciously with his issues with Aelin (fire trauma + evil mother figure/ fear of women trauma). I don't think he's even aware that this is scewing his perspective of Aelin, but it is...
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ THIS THAT'S TOTALLY OK. WHEN IT SWITCHES TO italics SKIP TO MY NOTES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE FOR A SUMMARY.
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Elide spent the next several days swimming in her power, learning it's tides and currents. Ghislaine warned her of burn out and being lulled by her power even to death, but Elide's power felt right. It felt like breathing. And as much as Ghislaine insisted that magic was stored in some sort of well, which went deeper and deeper when someone "tunneled." Elide couldn't fathom how deep her magic went. It was not narrow and deep, like a well, it was an ocean. There were centuries of memories held by the witches around her and it was all she could do to keep herself from reaching out to touch them, swimming right into the center of the sea.
Asterin was right, her power went beyond the bounds of ethicality. People's memories were some of the most private parts about them, but she had access to them. If she reached out and brushed Manon's hand she could see her turning on her grandmother to defend Asterin, she could re-watch Manon kill her half-sister, the crochan, she could see a moment in time when Manon and Aelin battled. But Manon did not want Elide in her head, which only made sense. No one belonged in Manon's memories, besides Manon herself.
Ghislaine and Asterin were the only witches who seemed as curious about her power as Elide was herself, although Asterin obviously had some reservations. Ghislaine would do anything for a real study of magic beyond her books and let Elide roam certain memories to test her power. Elide had gone back to Ghislaine's earliest memory of being taken from her mother to join the other witchling children when she was no older than three. That was more than a century and a half ago.
"How far can you go, do you think?" Asterin asked her one night by the fire. Thirteen pairs of witch-eyes were one her, so Elide was careful in how she replied.
"I've gone back at least four hundred years, maybe five hundred." Elide didn't elaborate until Asterin pushed,
"How do you know it was that long ago?"
"I-" Elide bit her lip. So far beyond the bounds of ethicality. "I saw Lorcan as a child."
"And he's five hundred years old?" Asterin let out a low whistle, "How old was he in the memory?"
Elide shook her head. She was angry at Lorcan, she had resolved never to forgive him, but even telling these witches that she'd seen him as a bright-eyed adolescent seemed like a betrayal of sorts. Suddenly Elide's thoughts flickered over her other visions and she recalled the recurring nightmare of the little demi-fae child sold by his own mother for drinking money.
Elide put her meat down and covered her face. She would not throw up again. She would not.
A little child, no more than two or three years old landed face first in the mud after being thrown, bodily thrown, from the house. The tiny child rolled over and sat up crying, his little face twisted and muddy, a dark bruise forming from the landing.
"You don't have to tell us particulars," Ghislaine prompted, "Just tell us how old he was so we can start on a timeline."
"Psshhh," Asterin waved Ghislaine off in irritation. "I want particulars!"
"No," Elide startled herself with the sharpness of her tone.
"Okay," Asterin said slowly, eyeing Elide cautiously. "Let's just stick to the timeline then."
"Hey there, my little fierce one," his brother said. "Come here buddy."
Little fierce one. That's what Lorcan's name meant.
An older boy, still a child himself, only eleven or twelve years old, rolled the little child and pulled him up with a grunt. The toddler snarled and pushed away from the comfort.
Lorcan still hated physical affection. Elide remembered the first time she'd touched him on the leg while introducing them to the circus crew. She remembered how he'd stiffened.
"Hey, hey, stop it. Come here." The older boy firmly pressed the little boy's head against his chest and, instead of pulling away this time, the toddler collapsed against the older boy. Little hands shot out to grip the older boy's shirt.
"Elide?" Manon asked, concern between her brows even if she kept it from her voice.
"I… he was a toddler. Two or three years old," Elide muttered.
Ghislaine's dark brows shot up and she scribbled something down in her notebook.
"The question is," Asterin said after the revelation sat untouched in the air for a moment. "Can you see the memories of anyone? Or only the memories of people you love."
"I do not-!" Elide started.
"Oh, hogwash," Asterin rolled her eyes with a wicked smirk, "I know I'm your favorite witch, don't even try to deny it."
Elide shook her head and found herself smiling. Asterin did have a point though, she had only seen the memories of people she cared about in some capacity.
She thought of the fae female lying dead on the floor of a cabin and suddenly wondered if this was Lyria, Rowan's former wife. She was starting to wonder if she wanted this magic.
"I don't know if I can see stranger's memories… I don't even know how I would go about trying."
"Perhaps you can try seeing memories of people inside the memories," Ghislaine suggested. "The next time you have a vision, try entering the memories of someone else in the dream. Or, you could try leaving the bounds of the person's memory. Memories are isolated incidents, if you can leave the individual's perception then your power isn't restricted to those you know."
Elide nodded, "I'll try."
"And don't think that I've forgotten about your pitiful strength training regimens," Asterin poked her in the arm. "I don't care if you magic users have secret weapons, you have to train the body just like anyone else. Even magic users are wary of witches." Asterin's grin was positively terrifying.
Elide nodded tiredly, and went back to her meat.
She found no relief in her dreams that night.
She woke up in the rain and didn't even have to open her eyes to know whose memory she was reliving tonight. Elide sighed and rolled over on her side in the mud, eyes begrudgingly cracking open. There, along the horizon sat that wretched hut, smoke wheezing from the chimney, rain scraping down the thatched roof to flood around the circumference of the structure. Slowly, Elide sat up, soaked through the bone, caked in mud, and tired. She didn't want to see any more.
The house erupted into screams and Elide scrambled up to bolt toward the door, like a moth to the flame. She passed straight through the door without having to open it and skid to a stop in the house. The hut was cluttered with dirty dishes, dity beds, dirty clothes, and dirty children. A striking figure stood in the middle of the room, fist's clenched at her sides. Her dark hair was thick and wild and her voice was poisonous as she seethed,
"Lorcan, come here."
Elide slide past the woman to find two children hiding in the shadows of a rickety chest of drawers. The boy was cowering in the corner, hands covering his face and a little girl was crouched in front of him snarling at the woman like a mother bear. They looked no older than four.
"I said," the woman shrieked, "come here!"
"He don't want to!" The tiny demi-fae female shrieked back, speaking for her brother.
The woman's face twisted menacingly and she bore down on the two children.
"Stop!" Elide took a swing at the woman, even though she knew by now she would only pass through her. There was no changing the past.
"Stop!" Elide felt her voice break as the woman stepped through her to grab the girl by the arm and throw her across the room.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Elide was pulling at her own hair now without being able to hurt anyone else as the woman grabbed the tiny child and hauled him off his feet. He snarled at her and struggled.
"Lorcan," the woman said in a stern tone. "What did I say about using magic?"
The demi-fae child in her grip shook his head back and forth frantically but didn't say anything.
"SPEAK, you little demon!" The woman slapped him across the face. Every child in the house flinched. "I know you can!"
Elide let out a frustrated scream reaching for the hot pot on the stove. Maybe she couldn't hurt the woman, but something else might? Of course her hands just passed straight through the handles. She was like a ghost of the future.
"WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT USING MAGIC?!" The woman roared. Elide wanted Lorcan to grab the woman by the shoulders and shake her senseless. But, while that may have been what the adult Lorcan would do, the child version of him just cowered. Huge, dark eyes, refused to meet his mother's matching pair, boiling up with tears.
"If you want to play with fire," the woman said in a menacing sing-song tone that sounded practiced, "you will get burned. Do you understand?!"
Lorcan whimpered. Elide took a kick at the woman's head uselessly.
The woman dragged the child, kicking and crying to the stove and pressed his hand to the top.
Elide's horrified screams were overpowered by the child's wails. The little girl, Lorcan's sister presumably, lunged for the woman and sunk a pair of four-year-old demi-fae teeth into the woman's shoulder. The woman let Lorcan's hand off the stove to throw the girl across the room again. Lorcan was sobbing in her arms, tiny legs given out from under him.
"You must learn," the woman shook him viciously, her face a mask of hatred and evil. "Now tell me you won't use magic again. Tell me!"
"N-n-no…" Lorcan's response was barely a whisper between his sobs. "No, no, no, no…"
Anyone in their right mind would recognize he was begging, not refusing, but the woman smashed his other hand on the stove top.
Elide covered her eyes and plugged her ears, "Stop! Stop! Stop! I don't want to see this!"
When the woman stopped she held Lorcan at arms length and demanded over her child's cries:
"What happens when you play with fire, Lorcan?"
When he just kept shaking his head and wailing she grabbed the first hand again.
"You get burned!" Lorcan shrieked madly. "You get burnedyougetburnedyougetburned!"
The woman stopped and looked him hard in the eye. The child was weak with sobs. "That's right," she said. "Will you do it again?"
"No!" The boy shook his head desperately. "No! No! No!"
"Good boy," the woman stood up and dropped him on the floor to go feed the other children. The dark haired sister crawled over to grab her brother under the arms and dragged him, still sobbing, back into the corner, snarling at her mother savagely.
"Veradis," the woman said blandly. "Come eat your dinner."
"No!" The girl shrieked. "You hurt mine! You hurt mine!"
"Veradis," The woman said in a false tone. "Your brother was being bad. I have to teach him what happens when we're bad."
"You're bad!" Veradis spat, clutching her brother to her chest. Lorcan was clinging to her like a lifeline. "He mine!" She bared tiny fangs at her mother. "He mine!"
Their mother rolled her eyes and popped a cork off an amber bottle. She downed half of it in the first drag.
Elide felt herself fading away. Elide was sobbing before she woke up. Someone was shaking her and she was only too grateful to wake up to Manon's stern face. She launched herself forward into the witch's arms and sobbed into her stiff shoulder.
There was nothing in the world that was worse than being forced to watch others suffer. She did not want this magic. She did not want this magic. She did not want this magic.
What happens when you play with fire, Lorcan?
Elide shivered.
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Yuck. Okay, writing about abuse (especially of children) really disgusts me. But for some characters it's a vital piece of why they become what they are.
If you skipped the memory due to the trigger warning, here is the SUMMARY:
Lorcan's mother punished him for using magic by pressing his hands to the stove, telling him if he wanted to play with fire he had to be willing to get burned. She just hates him and is evil. Elide tries to stop her, but because this happened in the past, she is, of course, unable to actually do anything but watch. Now Elide is traumatized too.
This is also important because we realize that the woman Lorcan is dreaming of might be his sister, Veradis, who tries to defend him from their mother, even though she's also only a small child. There will be more of her, worry not :)
That one is the worst memory, I think. Sorry for how rough it was. Hope you stick with me!
-D.