Chapter 22
Going east towards the Kingdom's territory from Alexandria, her mind kept stewing in the last bitter moment with Rosita.
If anything it was just another confirmation that Rick is up to some shit. She thought.
Fuck, I hope Judith didn't see that… Should I have kept my mouth shut about it?
Aargh. She closed her eyes mid flight and stopped for a second bathed in the red hues of the setting sun.
Breathe in and out. The exercise helping her obstructed feelings seep out.
It wasn't the end of her day, later that night she had agreed to reduce the Kingdom's firepower, but it was better to leave that for the late hours of the night. Which meant that she would get little sleep that night.
"Ideally we don't want to fight with them since we are in clear advantage and it would just be a waste of resources. They have to know they don't have the means to fight us, so they won't try anything unless they think they have an advantage, so we just need to make sure they don't have it." She said out loud, no need to worry about anyone hearing up in the air.
"It's just as Negan says, even if they think they can take them, they cannot take me." She assured herself.
I've faced far worse odds. She thought to herself as she picked up the speed again, already closing in on her mother's.
She hovered in the air above her mother's home and gave the area a once over to make sure there was nothing that could catch them unaware, but found nothing, so Sophia flew down and landed expertly on the floor in front of her mom's door.
It flew open before she could even knock on it and her mother received her with a warm smile and a hug. Her place was a lovely old house with a big front yard and strangely a few graves, inside the house had the seventies look and feel, and her mother had set up mainly in the living room where she had a fireplace which she used for cooking. The smell of her mother's cook filled her nostrils and woke up her stomach with a strong pang of nostalgia, she had been waiting for her with a hot pot of pasta and homemade sauce.
"Come in, come in." Her mom urged and she obeyed, walking in with her broom on hand which she left resting against the wall next to the door.
"Hi, mom." She greeted her smiling. Her bad mood all gone as soon as she crossed the threshold.
"Is that a broom?" Her mother asked in confusion, it looked like one but brooms don't generally have foot stands.
"Yeah for flying, I always move around with it." She explained to her happily, as she stood in the middle of the room looking around at what her mother called home. There were a few lit candles, which hardly managed to illuminate the place, and books on the couch that she tried to peek at from where she stood.
"That can't be safe, don't you drive?" Her mom asked her, the couch was looking at the fireplace, which kept it well illuminated and between the two there was an old small table in which Sophia placed her feet as soon as she sat down.
"I don't drive, besides flying is much better." She answered happily, Sophia felt very at home there with her mother, although it was a little too dark for her taste. So taking out her wand, she casted a few bluebell flames and charmed them to hold in place near the walls, giving the place much better lighting.
"It's cold fire, but it's better to not touch them." She warned, her mother watched the blue flames float in place with curiosity, the room was much better illuminated now so she blew off her few candles.
"Are you going to take your mask off?" Asked her mother suddenly, a tone that suggested she was as bothered by it as Carl. Sophia sheepishly realized that she had both hat and mask on, and since this was her mother, she obeyed.
She placed her left hand over the face of the mask and felt the feathers give in and retract as if alive, the weight of the metallic mask was translating to her hand, and with the right hand she took off her hat then threw it over the table but kept her mask in her hand.
The warmth of the fireplace felt tingly over the scarred side of her face, an effect that always reminded her of how it felt right after the explosion, but the air from the nearby window felt great on her good side. Wearing the mask all the time was easy to adapt to, but once she took it in privacy, she often felt like she could relax.
Her mother, bless her, took the hat and after giving it a few pats and a critical eye at the old patched spot, she placed it neatly hanging on a perch by the door. Sophia was just content to watch her as she calmly moved about, preparing for their dinner.
Is she nervous? She asked herself, it looked a bit like she didn't know what to do with herself.
"I went to Alexandria today." She commented, to get the ball rolling, but the news left her mother looking very concerned all of a sudden. "Don't worry, nothing happened." She clarified, a little bothered when she saw her mother's reaction, it was a little telling of what her mother expected from her.
"I'll be handling them for the time being, it's what we asked you to do." Her tone was a little accusatory, but Sophia thought her mother deserved it. After choosing to live there all alone.
Carol looked away and to the pot, giving it a few stirs with a wooden spoon. "How is everyone there?" Carol asked her.
"A few are out scavenging, the others pretty much lazing about. So I put them to work on growing some shit, hopefully, they won't need to go out that much in the future." She told her, Sophia was very aware that the things she said to her mother might get to her friends, who by chance seemed to be the leaders of over half of the communities.
"Most of them spent this whole time within the walls, we spent most of it outside. They didn't have a clue what they were doing when we got there." Her mom told her.
"Well they'll have to adapt, I won't allow Rick to spend days wherever with whomever just because they can't be bothered to produce shit instead of scavenging." She warned.
There was a brief silence between them and she couldn't help herself, she had to ask. "Did you talk to Rick since we met?"
"No." Her mother said plainly, in a way that Sophia couldn't tell if she was lying.
"Have you met Daryl since then?"
"Let's not talk about this, please." Her mother asked her. She stood up and started preparing two small ceramic bowls with the pasta, it smelled wonderful to Sophia but the sudden change of topic was just a little more to the letdown pile.
"Fine...So how was your day, mom?" She asked her. "Did you have fun here, all alone?"
The look that her mother gave her told her that she was already out of patience to take her teasing in any kind of good nature.
"Not nearly as alone as I hoped to be." She remarked. "Oh, not because of you of course. But Ezekiel keeps dropping by, gifting me supplies or sending his men to make the area safe...It's sweet and annoying at the same time."
That was news to Sophia, she didn't know the King was so concerned with her mother, after all, he had supposedly considered her offer of a reward for her location.
Or maybe that was another lie… She thought. One that gave him information about my powers?...
Her mother sat down next to her on the couch and handed her a warm bowl of pasta with a simple sauce that smelled wonderful. Sophia dug in immediately, the light smell of the spice opening her appetite.
"Oh gods mom, this is great!" She said hungrily and with her mouth full, her mother smiled at her and ate hers a lot slower than hers.
"You were hungry, are you eating well?" the woman asked her.
"I often eat breakfast and forget until the night. But I had lunch today." She commented, receiving a reproachful look from her mother.
"I know, I should eat better. It's just that sometimes the day passes me by." Sophia defended herself before continuing her attack on the bowl.
"Do you often spend the day out?" Asked her mother, which gave her pause, she could tell the question was coming from an innocent intention but she needed to keep in mind what she said there. "What is your day like?"
"Well, I wake up early in the morning and I eat something, then I study or meditate for some stuff I'm working on." She started listing with her fingers.
"You do meditation?" Her mother interrupted her. "What are you working on?"
"Yeah, well, I was. It's preparation for...let's say a branch of magic I'm learning. I thought it would help me with nightmares too but I don't think I'm doing well. Last time I burnt my little greenhouse." She said, trying to move the conversation away from her magic.
Her mother seemed to be interested in the information and they took a second to continue with their food.
"I have nightmares too." Her mother commented.
"Don't we all?" She asked her with a lopsided smile. "What do you dream about?"
Her mother gave it a thought for a few seconds. "I have nightmares about the things I've done. I...had to do some things along the way that I…" She tried to explain, her voice wavered and she had to stop. "What about you?" Her mother asked her after clearing her throat.
"I sometimes have nightmares about things I've seen, back when I was alone before I came across Negan." She confessed, for the first time to anyone.
"What do you see in your nightmares? Don't you ever dream about the things you've done?" Her mom asked her with interest.
"Not really, I don't think I do…" She said. Although, she wasn't sure if dreaming of killing her old master counted in this case.
"Back then when I was alone…" Sophia continued. "I used to fight the undead a lot. I spent hours killing walkers, it felt like it was all I did, and...everything happened so fast, I didn't have time to process all of it, but it would get really bad. By the time it was over, everything around me and myself ended up covered in blood and gore. Limbs, guts, maimed bodies of all kinds...I see that when I have nightmares, waves of it covering me entirely until it's hard to breathe" She explained half lost in her memories, the talk had effectively made sure her hunger was gone for the night though, so she put down her finished bowl.
"Why? Why did you do that? Surely you could have avoided them with your powers." Her mother asked her with a pained expression on her face.
"It doesn't matter now, I don't do it anymore." She tried to deflect. "I was not right in the head at the time." It was a half-lie at least, but her curse was not something that she could share willy nilly.
"Continue, I want to know more about you. What do you usually do after that?" Her mother asked her, thankfully changing the subject.
"I spend a bit of time walking among the workers and checking out how everything is at the Sanctuary, I help whenever then I may talk with Negan about what's going on and all that. I try to be involved or at least be aware of what is going on there or in the area." She explained, her mother nodded in interest.
"Then I fly off to do other stuff that I may have planned to do for the day, but if I don't have plans I check on people at the outposts." She continued, fully aware that her mother knew they had more than one outpost out there. "Today, on top of that, I went to Alexandria and brewed a potion for their plot of land. I will help their crops grow well."
"You turned out to be very active, I never got that impression from you when you were little." Said her mother.
"Jeez, mom. Sometimes I don't even know if I was entirely alive back then." Sophia tried to explain. "I just kinda moved with the flow, I just was there and barely even that."
It was hard to think about those times for her, sometimes she felt like it was someone else.
Her mother nodded with a sad understanding. "I get it, I feel like I was trapped in a very different nightmare back then like my head was numb. If I was half the woman I am today I would have never allowed…" Her mom tried to explain with teary eyes, Sophia took her hand in hers.
"I know, mom." She just said sadly. They remained there for a time in silence, the sound of the fire crackling once or twice.
"So...The king is chasing after you?" She joked after a while to change the mood. The tease got a chuckle out of her mother.
"He's not a bad man, just a little…" Carol looked like she was trying to find the words.
"Cheesy?" She interjected, holding back a laugh. That got her a smack on the shoulder by her mother, who nonetheless was smiling.
"What about Daryl? I hear you two are close." She asked her next, her mother looked suddenly surprised and slightly blushing.
Yeah, I thought so. Sophia said to herself, seeing the reaction.
"Daryl is a complicated man, I genuinely don't know what to think about it. But right now we are just very close friends." Her mother explained.
"But he is for sure better than Tobin? Right?" Sophia asked her teasing again.
Her mother was again caught by surprise. "You certainly like to gossip, I see." She complained, a half-smile painted on her face.
"All these pretenders, it's amusing to me, and all of them miles better than Ed. We'll have to make a toast about it someday." She smiled, happy that her mother was so much better than she used to be, she even looked prettier.
"What about you? I got the impression you are popular with the Saviors, you must have a few to choose." Her mother started. " I hope you are not taking boys to that place of yours, I saw that queen-sized bed you have."
Sophia couldn't help to laugh out loud at her mother's comment, then she thought for a second if she should say it or not.
"It's...girls, mom." She said smiling and cringing a little since she didn't know what kind of reaction she would get.
"What do you mean?...Oh." Was her mother's reaction, she went from confused to mildly alarmed.
"Yeah." Sophia managed to say, she too was blushing now. Coming out to her mother wasn't something that she thought would ever give her pause or scare her for any reason, but it was just personal.
"Are you sure?" Continued her mother, a clueless question that Sophia could understand coming from her.
"Yeah, mom." Sophia answered as she rolled her eyes. "I'm pretty sure I can tell what I like and what I don't like."
She could tell that it had left her mother a little stunned by the confession, but Sophia let her process it by herself, she didn't want to push much on the subject.
"I'm ok with it." She finally declared, clearly trying to make it less of a deal. "Do you have a girlfriend?"
"No, the last girl I tried to get close to, basically used me and stole from us before escaping and getting eaten." Sophia had been left feeling completely off the dating game after that, and a lot had happened since too, so she never really gave it much thought after it.
"Sorry." She said honestly.
"It's fine, it wasn't anything serious really." It was true, but deep down Sophia had daydreamed about what it could have been at the time.
"You know, there's this girl Tara who was part of our group, I think she's a lesbian too." Her mother told her, not that Sophia had any interest in knowing such a fact about the so-called Tara.
"Mom. Let me handle my shit, we can change the subject now." She told her mother, who deflated a little bit at the negative.
"She's older than you anyway." She stood up and picked up the bowls from the table and into the kitchen. "Do you want some tea?" Her mother asked her from the kitchen, she had a large washbasin set up there to clean them.
"Yeah, sure. Do you think I could sleep here tonight?" She asked her mother, who immediately nodded with a smile.
If she was being honest with herself, Sophia thought that knowing she had a night mission at the Kingdom and she was basically using her mother as alibi was more bitter for her than she thought when she came up with the plan. They were having a lovely talk that she didn't know she craved.
"Are you alright? You seem a little distracted." Her mother said, bringing her out of her running mind. She had a couple of cups in her hand and a teapot which she placed by the fire.
"Wait, mom, I can heat it nicely with my wand." She offered helpfully.
"Oh, ok that would be nice. I'm a bit tired already." Her mother told her and placed the teapot on the small table by the cups then sat down next to her.
Sophia took out her wand and casually gave the pot a couple of taps with the tip, and a faint plume of vapor started floating through the spout. "I was just thinking." She lied. "I should make sure to get you some gear, so it makes things easier for you. Like a gas stove or I don't know a wood-burning stove." She told her as she served them tea and handed one of the cups to her.
"You don't have to, I'm fine taking care of myself." Her mother said stubbornly, sipping on her hot cup of tea and sighing.
"I don't have to. You could just live with me at the Sanctuary like a queen or something." Sophia said digging in the reproach. "Hell, even like a queen with the King would be better."
Her mother smiled at her and smacked her shoulder, making her almost spill her tea.
Later that night, Sophia and her mother slept in the same bed, a double bed inside the house's most secure room. It was comfortable and spacey, but the best part was that they were close and they had spent a lovely evening together, talking about anything and everything. Nothing like the way they used to be with each other before.
She watched her mother's head resting against a pillow, her eyes closed and her mouth slightly opened as she fell deeper and deeper into slumber.
Then she reached under her pillow and took out the little dropper bottle that she had secretly taken out of her hat before going to bed, and moving as little as possible, she dropped three full droplets of sleeping draught straight into the mouth of her mother.
It was a strong potion for a no-maj, even a grown one, but she guessed it was enough to get out and back without her waking up. Her mother's sleep didn't change much, but after a safe amount of time, Sophia stood up and got ready for her night mission.
The room's unique window was sealed shut, so all she had to do was magically seal the door and her mother would be safe while she was gone.
Her mask was on the couch, softly illuminated by the little embers smoldering within the fireplace. The metallic surface was cold to the touch and she looked at it under the warm light of the embers, its eyes glaring at her, harsh and unyielding. But the little holes, often imperceptible with the design, drew a shadowy grimace.
The cold and vacant effect the front of the mask gave out, was equally opposed by the inviting, comfortable cloth lining the inside of it. Its mold fitted perfectly on her face and when it did, the change came. The feathers in the design came alive and crept around her head enveloping with tender familiarity, grabbing her hair and bunching it, and compressing it. Finishing in a little crown of feathers sticking up over her head, which the hat on the hanger covered nicely.
Picking up the broom, she exited the house. She didn't need to worry about making noise at that point but she tried to keep it low anyway. Once she hopped on it, Sophia kicked softly and the broom went straight up until she disappeared in the dark of the night, then sped up silently towards the Kingdom.
It was a very short dash on her broom, once there, Sophia gave the ground a once over, making sure to memorize the position of the watch that was distributed throughout the settlement. There were a couple of guards by the entrance of the main building and they had dogs with them, something Sophia believed was for her sake, remembering what had happened with the tiger.
It didn't matter though, she was already under the effect of a couple of silencing charms when she landed on the roof of the school's biggest building, away from the watch that was also there. They were two with a couple of scoped rifles, but they didn't hear her, focused as they were on the outside of their walls. There was a door there that led to the lower floors inside and all she had to do was unlock it with her wand and slowly slip inside the building, then she placed a disillusionment charm on herself.
She didn't know exactly where the armory was located, but she didn't have to look too much, it was behind the guarded door that was also bolt locked shut.
I had hoped they made it easy for me, but it won't matter. I've come prepared. She thought.
In the end, she turned around and walked down the hallway away from the two guards until she found a door leading outside that wasn't guarded. Very carefully and checking that no one saw her invisible hand open the door, she walked out, many of the residents of the Kingdom shared quarters at two communal buildings next to this one so Sophia headed there to find her target.
She took her time looking in the quarters, their inhabitants either out on patrol duty or in deep sleep. There was one she had in mind since early that morning.
Richard slept alone, his quarters were small, smaller than most. Just a little room where not much besides the bed fitted, a little table and chair as well as a walled-in closet.
The man was sleeping in his bed, a sad single mattress that was barely more than a cot. Sophia silently walked the few steps from the door and up to his bed, where she knelt in front of him and watched him breathe in and out much as her mother had been. Then she took out her sleeping draught and with the tip of the dropper, she gently tickled his lips until his mouth opened a little and she deftly dropped the entire contents of the little pipette.
Now safe, she removed her disillusionment charm.
This is getting to be quite expensive, but that will keep him down for the rest of the night. She thought, and with that, she locked the door, quieted the room and got to work.
"I'll need just a little bit of your hair, Richard darling." She whispered, and with that, she pinched a few strands and pulled fast. Then from her hat, she grabbed a little bottle with a wide neck and stopper and quickly dropped the hair strands in it.
"This is going to suck." She said to herself with a sigh and swallowed the liquid, she never used a Polyjuice potion, but she knew they were famously distasteful. She had a good stock of many different potions she recovered from a couple of apothecaries she found long ago, but Polyjuice was not something she had in spare.
The change came in after a few seconds, it started with heat in her stomach than spread all over her body then her flesh and skin felt like it started to bubble and boil, She had to bend over in all fours when her limbs started to stretch and grow, the pain was strong but she managed to keep silent, and by the time it was over, she stood a couple of feet taller and a man. When she checked herself in the mirror she had to remember to take off her mask, but when she did, it was the image of Richard that stared at her from the mirror.
She calmly opened the closet door and carefully arranged a proper set of clothes for herself, then after taking a few deep breaths, she walked out of the room.
The halls of the communal building were dark and empty, most people there sleeping or on their night shifts so Sophia tried to walk as quietly as possible, something she had to make an effort in her new bigger body. But she came across no one on her way back to the school building, neither at the side entrance where she had used previously, only when she returned to the hallway leading up to the armory she saw the two same guards standing by the door.
She walked up to them in Richard disguise. "You two." She said once she was in front of them, the deep voice of the man she had assumed form off catching her by surprise. "The king is a little paranoid tonight, and frankly me too, I want you two to stand guard by his door. Make sure your King can sleep safe, and don't bother him unless absolutely necessary." She ordered without giving them no chance to argue.
The two guards looked at each other but in the end, shrugged their shoulders and walked away, they didn't seem to suspect anything. Soon they were gone and Sophia was alone with the Kingdom's armory, she easily unlocked the door with her wand and a whispered incantation then walked in, closing the door behind her.
Once inside, Sophia recovered her hat from under the man's chest armor where she had stashed it and started magically moving every ammo box from the room to the inside of her hat, the original plan had been to vanish a part of their supply to keep them short but Sophia thought she could weaken them even more with a little clever subterfuge.
And hit the King where it hurts for lying to me.
Once she made sure every ammo from that room was inside the storage within her hat, she curiously checked what else they had. The worst of it was a few grenades and what she recognized as possibly some kind of plastic explosive, Sophia vanished those without a thought, it wouldn't do anyone good to have explosives and she knew for a fact that the Saviors already did have more than she was comfortable with.
By the time she was done, Sophia exited the Armory as casually as if it was her home and walked back towards Richard's quarters where she magically sealed the door again as well as making sure no sound came out, just in case.
"Nothing personal Rich…" She said, giving a look to the man on the bed. "Or maybe it is personal, but just with your king, after all, he lied to me when I asked about my mom." The man's sleep was unperturbed by any of her talking, as expected of the sleeping draught.
By her calculations, the little Polyjuice she had swallowed would lose its effect on her after a little bit and there was still enough night, so she sat down at his improvised desk and rummaged around with bored curiosity. A few maps, a few pens, a book about coping with heavy loss, and a lamp.
Nothing out of the ordinary or of her interest except when she flipped through the book and found within it as a page marker, a weathered picture. In it, there was a brunette woman and a girl with similar hair, their faces side by side and looking at the camera. The woman had beautiful light green eyes that made her look especially pretty, the girl looked to be ten or eleven and although they shared the same hair, her eyes were blue. They were smiling carelessly and everything looked perfect in the frame.
Surely a picture from the old world. She thought.
Sophia dropped the picture on the desk and stood up to the mirror the man had on the wall and sure enough, her current eyes, Richard's eyes, were the same shade of blue.
Damn.
"You lucked out on those two, Rich…" She said as she studied her face and compared it with her memories, when paying close attention and thinking back, the man looked different when she took his form. It was in the way her brows were less tense and her eyes looked a little more alive, with a little more shine to it.
It was as she thought this that the change came again, her stomach churned loudly and she started to itch all over her body, then her body began to feel like she was melting in cold. It didn't hurt much at all and by the end of it, she was back again in her familiar shape and height, although sporting much bigger clothes.
She picked up her hat and from it, she took out a couple of ammo boxes, one for a rifle, one for a pistol, and placed them under the man's bed. Then, after carefully placing back the clothes inside the closet and donning the mask of the Harpy again as well as the hat, she disillusioned herself and walked out making sure not to make any noise.
All that was left to do after that was drop a few clues near the perimeter wall and fake a message note from a nonexistent co-conspirator, and her job was done. It was that simple to blame a man of treason with magic. To set him against his friends, to have him pay the price of her goals.
She felt pretty proud of her idea, not only it was an excuse to take away all their ammo, it would be a direct hit to the King by targeting his right-hand man.
The night sky was still dark by the time she came back to her mother's home, as she hoped, the woman slept innocently in the bed ignorant of her night escapade. After making sure everything was in place as it was left the previous night, Sophia went back to bed with her mother. They slept the whole night up close and in the morning her mother woke her up early.
Before she left that day, her mother delighted her with a delicious breakfast of tea and fruits. They ate outside basking in the morning sun, its light brightening the beautiful new memory of them together, happy and free.