SIMON
The creature is staring at me, and its eyes are blue. The kind of blue that you get when you spill ink on already blue paper. Dark. intense. Menacing. Alien almost. All my hairs are standing on ends, my heart is hammering a panicked rhythm in my chest. I have bitten the inside of my mouth so many times since I got lost in the Woods that I can taste the coppery hint of blood.
I have no idea what creature this is. A dragon land siren? It is looming tall above me, looks like something born out of dragon and human. It has blue scales that shimmer and change shape and colour. What I first think are wings are wrapped around the creature like a Toga. When I first see it, I yelp in panic and hold my sword in front of me, ready to fight.
"Put your tooth pick away, Mage. It won't hurt me and I won't hurt you." It doesn't move its mouth while speaking. Why doesn't it move its mouth?
Before I decide what to do with this question, the creature goes on, sniffing.
"Your fate is so tangled. Your futures are shifting." It speaks directly to my mind. I seem to be in some kind of trap, magickal most likely. Because I can't move. My body isn't listening to me. I am stuck here. And now even my mind is in the creature's hands. Paws? Claws? whatever. I cannot see because her limbs are covered in a veil of mist-like substance.
"My futures? Plural?"
The creature nods and blue shimmering light follows its movement.
"There's more of me?"
"There's one of you." the tone of this sounds very patronizing.
"But you said futures. plural." I counter.
"There's one of you and many paths that you can take. There is never one fixed future for the likes of you."
"Mages?"
"Humans, pixies, vampires… creatures with moral agency and partial freedom of will," it says dismissively.
"Oh." It sounds strange to be put in the same category with vampires. It adds salt to an existing wound seeing as I got myself in this mess while following Baz, trying to figure out what he is plotting against me or/and to catch him in the act of being a vampire. I did hear him whisper my name to Niall and Dev several times now. And I catch him watching me when he thinks I am not noticing. His plotting is driving me slowly to madness. Gahhh, I wish I knew what he is preparing to unleash on me, so that I am prepared when he strikes...
"I can help you with that." The voice sounds in my head and I startle. Does the creature read minds?
It doesn't reply to that.
"How?" I ask instead. Aloud. To maintain at least some semblance of normalcy in this abnormal situation.
"I can give you a glimpse into one of your futures." she waves her arm in front of me and I get a closer look at what I thought was mist or light or something - those are small insects, like living snowflakes of a glacial blue, swarming around her. They form a cloud around her lower limbs. When she moves they follow her.
"Which one of my er... futures?"
"You choose: I can show you one that is most probable, or one that is least probable. I can show you one that you will enjoy, one that you will hate… You choose."
"What do you get from it?" I am suspicious but also very intrigued.
The creature laughs.
"I get to touch your magic. For 3 to 5 days you will be able to see into one future that you choose, and I will be able to touch your magic."
That sounds dirty. Touching my magic.
"How will you use it?" I have a lot of it. I probably will not miss it. But still, I would rather not have it used for evil.
"I will study it. Not use it!" The creature makes a face that I translate as its equivalent of rolling eyes. "There are higher interests in this world than using and consuming. My kind is more interested in learning and understanding."
"What is your kind?" I ask and immediately feel a sort of tension gathering in my sternum, coming from outside and pushing inside me. I reformulate: "What ... Who are you?"
"I am Frigg and Vör's daughter. Transformed into Ethereal by their eternal love."
Ok. A little bit over dramatic. I get a feeling that Baz would love this type of talk and would be able to keep up with it. He probably would know who these Frigg and the other one are.
"What will it be then, mageling?"
Which future should I see to maximize my preparedness for Baz's plotting...? And the Humdrum's. I add hastily in my mind.
Sometimes Baz seems a more present problem, albeit a nuisance rather than a great threat to the whole of magic, but still. He is always there, in the front of my mind, while the Humdrum is more like a white noise that I learned to tune out.
"I want to see the future that I least expect." I declare on an impulse.
She nods.
"And so be it."
I feel a slash on my forearm, underneath my shirt and coat. I yelp. "It is done." The creature announces then she dissolves in blue mist.
"Wait! How do I find my way out?" I yell but no one is there to answer.
I choose a random path and try not to panic too much. In December night falls early and aggressively. Especially in the woods.
I decide to try my luck with a spell, I wouldn't want to be stuck here after dark… Baz might decide to use me as prey…
"Find my way!" I wave my wand, doing it all wrong probably.
The spell is supposed to work as a pull to a certain direction (the opposite in which I started). Because my magic is uncontrollable, the spell feels as if someone tied a rope around my middle and is aggressively pulling me. I lose my balance after the first pull, stumble and almost fall face forward.
Fuck.
I quickly realize that if I want to walk out of the woods on my two feet and not be dragged out of them, I will have to run. My stomach grumbles - there goes my energy storage down the drain… (I've been a total wreck today. Never got the chance to eat, because Baz kept moving around in random patterns. I had to follow him. Really. me starving is his fault.)
It takes me around twenty minutes to get out of the thick of it. 20 minutes of running and once falling when the pull made a sharp turn and being dragged through leaves and grass for at least 5 meters before reassembling and getting up on my feet.
Needless to say I am cursing like a sailor all the way.
We - the Pull has become personalized in my mind - reach the Watford grounds right before the last sun rays fade away.
I expect the Pull to disappear but instead of going away it drags me to the right, along the perimeter.
Nooo! I grind my teeth. The entrance is the other way around!
I barely have time to catch my breath. If this was Penny she would already be canceling the first spell, punishing it somehow, cleaning herself from the leaves and dirt, and also spelling some food in her hand. Oh, and healing the cut on the forearm
I wish she were here. I wish I were with her.
Finally when the Pull stops, it literally throws me on the ground. I groan in pain - I am pretty sure spells aren't supposed to be assholes to the mage casting them.
I get on my knees and cough out a dry leaf. Fucking Normals fucking up the climate. We did not have a drop of snow this winter! Not even a hint. It feels like a prolonged autumn - and not the colorful autumn, more like the afterparty drunk guest of an autumn that keeps finding reasons not to sod off home and ruins the host's day. So instead of falling on a cushion of snow, I get a bedding of wet twigs and dirty leaves.
"Ahem". Someone clears their throat. I look up and groan loudly. There he is. The bane of my existence. Basil Pitch. Looking innocently at me, as if he hasn't been hunting and plotting all year long right under my nose!
"Need a hand?" he offers and smiles brightly, extending his perfectly manicured hand to help me up. Oh, how I loathe him!
Before I tell him to shove that hand up his arse, the crappy woods disappear, Baz in his perfectly tailored dark green coat disappears, even the twilight goes away.
I am lying on the ground. The sky is bright blue and in places even turquoise. So pretty, I think. The sound of waves crashing lulls me into sleep. I probably shouldn't fall asleep in my trunks only. I burn quicker than I tan. I move the necklace chain to the side as it heats up under the sun burning me. I don't take it off. I never do.
"Need a hand?" a familiar voice says from above me. I squint at the figure covering the sun, now. Broad shoulders, long black shaggy hair, legs that store his height advantage. A lean arm extended to me, palm up. Long fingers that play the violin and know how to caress me just right.
His features are hooded in shadows, I can't look at him properly because of the blinding sun shining right in his back. But I know this face so well. I could close my eyes and see the pouting mouth, the sharp nose, the laughing eyes. The chin I like to bite ever so often.
Joy tugs at the corners of my mouth, pulling them up. Anticipation bubbles in the middle of my chest.
"I wouldn't mind a hand. Where do you plan to put it?" I ask coyly.
He laughs, mirth spilling out of him in loud and clear har-har-s.
"Get your mind out of the gutter, love," he reaches down to take my hand, to pull me up. "All those dirty thoughts swirling around in that beautiful mind of yours. I love it."
Instead of letting him pull me up, I pull him down on top of me. He cushions his fall into a push up, hands beside my shoulders. Some sand flies in my hair from his acrobatic landing. I shake my head to get it out but more gets in.
"Hello, darling." I say as he lowers himself on his elbows, transferring most of his delicious weight onto me. My palms move underneath his shirt, on his back, loving the feel of muscles moving underneath my touch. He is warm like the water in the sea. One of his legs is in between mine and I wrap myself around him. Mine. I tell him with my body.
"Hello, love." Baz whispers and plants his mouth on mine.
I jerk away, scrambling backwards like a crazed crab. What the fucking fuck?! I stop moving and throw an accusing stare at Baz. At this shitty December Watford Baz, with hair slicked back instead of falling freely around his face, and thinner, younger, with the same pouting mouth but less likely to throw his head back with a carefree laugh. With less crinkles at the corner of his eyes… I can see that Baz with my mind's eyes as I compare him with this one.
I can feel the pressure of that Baz's mouth on mine while I glare at this one. My heart is going a thousand kilometers per hour.
"Whoa, Snow. Slow down, mate. What's wrong?" His eyes are wide with worry.
"Piss off!" I can feel myself starting to smoke a little.
The worry goes away and he slips on the same expression he wears almost every time we interact, that of cool contempt.
"You look like the Woods shat you here." His boot kicks mine and I recoil. "Did your evening trip take an unexpected turn?" he smirks, one perfect eyebrow raised.
"Piss off, Baz!"
He laughs once. And this laughter is so wrong, so not like the one in the vision that I feel like crying. This laughter is mean.
"There he is! The Chosen One we all know and love, (well, tolerate more like it), demonstrating his delightful rich vocabulary!"
I can't speak. I can't process anything right now.
He called me love. The word came from this mouth. This same mouth that I want to punch now... I wanted so badly to kiss in that vision!
It must be a mistake. The creature gave me the wrong visions. The wrong future. She is mistaken. I get up awkwardly, hands in dirt and scratches.
My arm is still slightly bleeding from where the Creature took my blood.
As if on cue, Baz's nostrils flare, his eyes narrow.
"What happened to you, Snow? You're bleeding."
"Why should you care? YOU happened to me!" I yell at him and get my sword out. a few sparks fly to the leaves, but they are wet and don't catch fire. "This is all you!" The more I talk the more convinced I become that this is an elaborate plan by Baz, that the creature and the woods were some kind of hallucination. That the visions are all part of it. Of the Plot! Did he put something in my food? Did he use a spell? I shake my head and focus my eyes on Baz.
He has taken a step back and his wand out, and is snarling at me, baring his human canines.
"Come on, you coward, show me your fangs!" I rage at him.
Hello, love. Husky voice filled with warmth rings in my ears. It repeats again and again until all I can hear is the whoosh of my blood and the Hello, love, Hello, love, love….