Fair warning, this includes one of the more sexually explicit things I've ever written. The explicit part is very brief and just at the very end, just thought I'd mention it.
For Beth, Hallowe'en came to Caegelyn with a creeping sense of dread. That wasn't entirely rational, she knew, but she couldn't help it — Beth hadn't exactly had a great time on previous Hallowe'ens.
When she'd been a little kid, she'd had mixed feelings about the holiday. The Dursleys had always had a strange aversion to anything out of the ordinary (strong enough it was honestly kind of funny sometimes in retrospect), so they did not like Hallowe'en, a time for ghosts and vampires and witches and zombies, all kinds of things that should not be, everyone around (even the supposedly mature adults!) embracing fantasy all childish and unmannerly. Dudley had complained more times than she could count about the huge stick up their arses his parents had about the holiday — they did tolerate him trick-or-treating, but they often forbid him from getting costumes he liked (obviously anything too freakish wouldn't suit for their Dinky Duddydums), and there'd been films he wasn't allowed to see or games he wasn't allowed to play or places he wasn't allowed to go. Even to Dudley, his parents' obsession with being perfectly normal thank-you-very-much could be frustrating sometimes.
Beth had taken a private glee with the whole thing, people going out and about in colourful and silly costumes, stories of magic and ghosts and all kinds of spooky things, embracing the freakish and strange — for one day, the world becoming a little less like the Dursleys, and a little more like her. (Or at least what she was always told she was like, anyway.) Vernon grumbling irritably and Petunia getting that pinched look of disapproval, pointed at people who weren't Beth, safe to take a little bit of amusement with her guardians' discomfort. Looking out the window at the children going by, wishing she could join them while knowing she couldn't, the Dursleys would never tolerate the slightest sign of unusualness from her...fearing they would take out their frustration at the world being a little less orderly for a day on her...
Yeah, mixed feelings, that was a good way to put it.
She had still liked the holiday enough to be disappointed when she learned it happened to be the day that her parents were murdered — and that was when unpleasant Hallowe'ens really started up. The Hallowe'en of '91 hadn't been great to begin with, since she had just recently learned it was the anniversary of her parents' deaths, and it also happened to be the tenth anniversary, so people at school kind of made a big deal about it. (Dumbledore gave a speech and everything, it was humiliating.) Thankfully, all the neat stuff around, flocks of bats and magically-animated skeletons and the ghosts floating around performing dramatic reenactments of their own deaths, had distracted everyone else from it pretty quickly, and then it was kind of fun...until she was nearly killed by a mountain troll. She and Hermione and Ron sort of became friends that night — properly, she meant, they'd talked and hung out a little before than, but after that night they were inseparable — so there was a silver lining... Yeah, mixed feelings, that was it.
And then in '92 the Chamber of Secrets shite started...and then in '93 Sirius broke into the castle like a crazy person...and then in '94 her name came out of the Goblet of Fire...and then in '95... Well, actually, nothing much happened last year — she had spent the whole time nervous something was going to happen, so she hadn't exactly enjoyed herself anyway. Shitty Hallowe'ens started even when she was too young to remember. Maybe the one in '80 was fine, but there was the big one in '81, and the Battle of Hogsmeade had been on Hallowe'en '79 — her parents had been in it, and had even fought Voldemort wand-to-wand, almost died any number of times, so Hallowe'en had been a bad day for her since before she'd even existed.
Though, Hermione had a kind of funny theory about the Battle of Hogsmeade: she'd done the maths, and apparently Beth should have been conceived pretty close to Hallowe'en '79. Hermione's theory was that Beth's parents had, um, celebrated surviving the battle, but were exhausted and emotional (as nearly dying could do to a person) and forgot to take certain precautions, so then Beth happened. So, it was very possible that she might not exist at all if the Battle of Hogsmeade of Hallowe'en '79 hadn't happened, which was a weird thought.
So, considering all that, Beth thought she couldn't be blamed for feeling a bit...uneasy, about her first Hallowe'en in Caegelyn. She needn't have been, though — as peculiar as the holiday was, mostly unrecognisable as the one she knew from her time, nothing bad happened. The night was perfectly pleasant.
In fact, as guilty as it made her feel for thinking it — her friends might be dead right now, and it was all her fault — it turned out to be one of the best nights of her life so far.
The holiday started slow — it was another fasting day for Christians, and they often took it easy if they knew they weren't going to be eating at all. Besides, by this point things around Caegelyn had well slowed down even when they weren't taking it easy. The grain harvest had been done for a while now, and people were still picking vegetables and fruits and mushrooms and gathering nuts and stuff — and would continue through November, she was told — and the fields had already been tilled over, the winter grain to be planted in a week or two. So they were in a kind of lull, people working on crafts and the like, squaring things away for the winter, the really hard work done for the moment.
And the first part of the holiday was more solemn, solitary...at least for the mages. Sylvi's family had a few old, pre-Christian religious things they still did, and while the Church tolerated some of them, there were others they were very much not okay with — attempting to communicate with the spirits of dead people was one of them, big no-no. If Beth understood correctly, not necessarily because the thing itself was bad, but because they thought demons would intercept their messages and try to trick them, and maybe even possess them — which Hunyð said was a thing that could happen if you weren't careful, because apparently demons were a thing, what the fuck... — but still, not something they would do where people could see, was the point. This was the sort of thing they would do in public, once upon a time, but because Chritistians didn't like it now it was a private thing, going off alone to do little rituals to try to talk to dead people.
Sylvi claimed it didn't really work...most of the time (which implied it did sometimes), but it was something they did anyway, just, talking at them, whether they got an answer or not. So, kind of like that thing Beth had caught glimpses of in films and things, where people would stand on people's graves and talk at them? same idea, maybe? (Sirius had offered to take Beth to her parents' grave, but it sounded uncomfortable, she'd never worked up to it.) Anyway, Sylvi said she (girl today) did it for her mum, just talked to her about stuff that happened since last time, you know, no big deal, really.
For a little bit, Beth vaguely wondered whether she should try it, before remembering her parents weren't dead at the moment — they wouldn't even be born for over a thousand years. She was so bloody stupid sometimes...
Anyway, while everyone was occupied with that, Beth spent most of that time writing — part of it going over things she was studying, but also just journaling. More than she would usually do (if only because she didn't want to waste paper), and she didn't know why she was doing it, exactly. The explanation of what Sylvi's family were doing today had put it in her head, she guessed. Not exactly writing to the people she'd left behind, but... Well, a little bit of that too, actually. Not really — she was practising her Cambrian, if she meant to write to anyone she'd known in the future obviously she'd use English — but almost as though she were talking to them about what had happened, and... Well. It was a thing.
She didn't know if it did her any good, was kind of making her miserable, but oh well.
The party part of the holiday didn't start until after sunset. As Beth had already learned by now, the locals marked the end of one day and the start of the next at sunset; on Hallowe'en, sunset was also the beginning of winter. (Which seemed like an odd time for it to Beth, but okay.) There would be bonfires and food and drink and stuff, but before that there was a ceremony, which it turned out Beth actually had a part in.
Hallowe'en was all about death, supposedly the time when the afterlife was closest to earth, the gap easiest to bridge — this could be a good thing, people trying to talk to people they'd lost and sometimes even get advice (supposedly), but it could also be a bad thing, malicious spirits coming about to fuck with people. The point of the fires, apparently, was to keep the bad spirits away. There were also things they did with the ashes from the fires, spreading it in certain places or marking doorways, to basically ward off bad luck for the year or whatever, it was a whole thing, there were a lot of superstitions wrapped up in all this.
It was also a time when people attempted to lay angry spirits to rest. This was especially important for anyone who'd killed people over the course of the year. Which, of course, Beth had.
(Kind of a lot of people, actually.)
While it did sound like this was mostly superstition — Beth was pretty sure the spirits of dead people didn't actually try to fuck with the people who'd killed them (except maybe if they were a ghost, which was a different thing) — but there were was some point to it. It was a way to ask for forgiveness for what they'd done, from the gods or the community or whatever, attempt to clear up any hard feelings remaining over it, or work out their guilt. And sometimes out of hope it might prevent a revenant from rising.
Because apparently revenants were real? Beth had heard of them before — bodies of people who'd died violently being taken over by some kind of freaky magics, mindlessly seeking vengeance against whoever had done it. They kind of sounded like inferi, at first glance, but they were a completely different thing. For one, they weren't created by a dark wizard — Voldemort apparently liked inferi, Death Eater attacks sometimes included fucking zombies — instead rising on their own...somehow? And they were also far more dangerous than inferi — they were harder to kill, and could cast magic, often far more powerful than the mage had been when alive, and sometimes really weird magic too. They were incredibly destructive, mad and mindless, would just slaughter their way through anyone between them and the target of their vengeance, very, very dangerous.
But Beth hadn't thought they were real. They'd come up in stories in History, and were referenced now and again in Defence, but she'd never heard of one coming up in the modern day, so she'd thought... Well, that they were just myths, mages had those same as muggles. But Sylvi insisted they were real. Almost always mages (but sometimes even muggles), if their body wasn't disposed of properly they might rise on the third sunset — which made some people think Jesus had been a revenant, though sane and benevolent, which literally never happened — but sometimes it could happen on Hallowe'en too, and they were one of the most dangerous evils in the world, a big part of why people tried to clean up after battles as soon as possible.
And no, these weren't just stories Sylvi had been raised on — she'd personally seen a revenant once, a couple years ago. Someone had been murdered in one of the outlying little villages, isolated enough nobody knew, until... Well, it sounded really freaky, the air snapping with invisible lightning and plants just dying wherever the thing walked. The family had rushed out as soon as they'd felt the magic on the air — sick and cloying and wrong — it'd taken long minutes for half the family working together to destroy the thing...but not before two entire families in the little village had been killed in the crossfire, along with a couple of Sylvi's relatives who'd been fighting the thing. The murderer had tearfully turned himself in in the aftermath (he'd been executed), there'd been rituals to cleanse any ground the revenant had touched, it was a whole mess. The point was, revenants were definitely, certainly real.
Which...huh. Maybe future mages had just learned better how to prevent them from happening? There were ways to do that, apparently — cremation for one, severing the head, washing the body in water mixed with salt and certain herbs, put it in isolation wards, there were purification rituals... — so maybe something like that was just routine in the time Beth came from. She'd never been to a funeral or anything before, so she was not in a position to know.
But anyway, point was, at the ceremony marking the end of the day and the beginning of winter, there was a time for people to ask forgiveness for the people they'd killed this year — and since Beth had killed so many people, she really should do it. If only because people might wonder about her moral character if she didn't. Sylvi warned her ahead of time, and suggested she consider what she would say for herself when the time came, but it wasn't like it was a very big ask, Beth just went along with it.
The ceremony itself took place in the game field outside of town. There was a huge fucking bonfire set up here, a crowd gathering as sunset approached, the mages teasing it into flame. There were prayers and things led by Feði, some of which Beth understood — she followed the Cambrian parts decently well, but she hadn't gotten nearly as much practice with Latin — all about death and the Kingdom of Heaven and forgiveness of sins and blah blah, religious stuff. Beth was only kind of half-listening, going over in her head what she wanted to say when she was called up.
She wasn't the first to be called up — she'd definitely killed more people than anyone else this year, but they were going chronologically. There were kind of more than she'd expected...but she guessed she shouldn't be surprised, this was the bloody Dark Ages. Most of them were the family's warriors, who'd killed people doing their jobs at one point or another. They would come up, kneel in front of Feði, talk about what happened and why they'd done it; Feði would say something, which did vary a little bit, but always ended with leading them in a prayer for forgiveness; then the person would stand and pitch something into the fire — a hazelnut, smeared with a few drops of their blood.
This was pagan shite, Sylvi said, the fire and the nut and the blood, a ritual to appease angry spirits. Giving them a little bit of your blood so they wouldn't want more, basically. But again, it was polite to not tell the Christians they were still doing pagan shite, so.
Most of them were the local warriors, but not all, there was one random farmer who killed someone in an accident to do with a partially-built house and an ox. Somehow, it wasn't very clear — the man obviously felt fucking awful about it, he was having trouble talking through his crying. Not long after that, it was Godric's turn, and Beth finally learned about the incident that had brought Godric here in the first place.
Apparently, some travellers had been spending the week in the village he lived in...and one day they gang-raped his sister. Jesus fucking Christ. He'd confronted them, and he didn't really remember what happened...but apparently a firestorm had exploded around him, killing all the men but also incinerating half of the village — most had managed to flee, but some hadn't...including his father and brothers, who'd been with him at the time.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
(So that was why Godric preferred they pretend to be cousins instead of siblings. Got it.)
Godric did mention the vikings he'd killed too, but most of it was about his absurdly deadly accidental magic incident — and well it should, that was some traumatic shite right there. Feði was somewhat stern about it, all vengeance being a sword that cut the wielder and evil begetting evil, but also swerving into fatherly understanding and forgiveness. Godric was barely able to follow along in the prayer, breath eaten up by sobs.
When Godric joined them again — red-eyed and sniffling, but moving smoother than before, as though having released tension Beth hadn't noticed before — she sidled closer to him, and... Well, she wouldn't know what the fuck to say, even if she could — the ceremony was going on, so she really shouldn't interrupt. Instead she just took his hand, her fingers slipping through his. He glanced down at her, but didn't say anything either, his hand squeezing hers a little.
But not for very long, because her turn was pretty soon after Godric's. She had considered what she would say, and had eventually settled on the truth. When Feði asked what she had to confess, speaking clearly and in simple words to be sure she would understand, after explaining what had happened and why, she pointedly did not say she wanted forgiveness for it: she'd done nothing wrong, and so there was nothing to forgive.
She didn't even feel bad about it, honestly. It wasn't until a few days after the fight that it'd sunk in, but... She didn't know how many people she'd killed that day, but it was a fair number — over two dozen, probably. And she didn't feel guilty about it, not at all. She hadn't enjoyed killing them, no, it was mostly just gross, but she'd done what she had to. They'd been there to kill and enslave people, just because they could, so they could burn in hell, as far as Beth was concerned. She'd done the right thing, and she wasn't about to beat herself up for stopping bad guys.
She did feel kind of bad about not feeling bad, if that made sense? It was confusing even feeling it herself, but, she knew what some of the people back home would think, if she told them she didn't feel bad in the slightest for killing so many people. What kind of things some people would say about her, where they didn't think she could hear. Sirius said Dumbledore had been reluctant to use lethal force against even known Death Eaters, worried what resorting to such violence would do to their own people. (Because killing evil sons of bitches before they could kill other people was bad for your mental health, apparently? Yeah, Sirius hadn't understood it any better than Beth did.) Even some of her friends would be horrified with her, she knew — she remembered talking about Quirrell forever ago, yeah, they wouldn't react well. But she couldn't help it, it wasn't like she could make herself feel something she just...didn't.
The bastards had started it, it was them or the people in that little village, so she'd killed them. She wasn't sorry, and she wasn't going to pretend to be for this ceremony thing either.
(Maybe there was something wrong with her, maybe the Dursleys had been right in some small way, but there wasn't exactly anything she could about that. She was what she was, and they all just had to live with that.)
She'd expected Feði to be an arse about her not being sorry, but he wasn't, really. Solemn and serious and a little disapproving, yes, but sometimes you had to do terrible things to protect people who couldn't protect themselves — God understood the realities of the world He'd created no less than anyone on it. But even if Beth didn't think she needed forgiveness, Feði would beg for it on her behalf anyway, because that was his job, just as fighting on their people's behalf was Beth's.
...
Huh. Nice of him, she guessed. She'd half-expected him to say she was definitely going to go to hell if she didn't shape up...
Not long after that, the ceremony was over. There was more talking from Feði, closing out the year and prayers for luck in the next one, blah blah, none of it was really important. They'd timed it pretty well, the sun slowly slipping below the hills to the west as Feði talked — the day wasn't technically over until the sun was all the way below the horizon, just touching it didn't count. It might be her imagination, but she thought Feði dragged out his speech a little, waiting for the sun to properly set, before transitioning into another one of those prayers with call-and-response bits. Actually, Beth's Latin still wasn't great, but she thought it was one of the same one she'd heard several times by now, apparently just a standard thing. And then the prayer finished, the sky starting to properly darken, and the year was over and winter had come.
(Except not really — the calendar wouldn't turn over to 877 until the New Year Beth was more familiar with. She honestly wasn't sure why they talked about it being a new year when it very much wasn't.)
The actual party part of the holiday was rather more subdued than the ones around the harvest, or after their fight with the vikings. Not that there was really that much of a difference. People gathered around bonfires — theirs wasn't the only one, as night fell it grew easier to spot the yellow-orange glows dotted here and there across the area — there was food and drink, the air filled with the crackling of the fire and the chatter of dozens of voices. The most immediate and obvious difference was that there wasn't any dancing going on at all — some music, a bit of singing cropping up here or there, but rather less energetic than the music she'd heard before, much more slow and solemn.
Not that it was all sad and depressing, no, of course not — life here was hard enough already, they didn't need to all make each other more depressed for no good reason. There was plenty of joking around and laughter going on, Beth caught glimpses of what she assumed were games of some kind. A couple different ones, one which involved tossing these little sticks — there were marks carved and painted on the sides, but she never got close enough to see what that was about — and another which... Well, it looked like it might be related to hopscotch somehow — there was definitely jumping around going on over there, but again, she didn't ask. As the night went on, there tended to be a lot of laughter coming from over there, as people started being a little too tipsy to do it properly and kept falling on their arses.
A lot of the talk Beth overheard seemed to be about loved ones or friends who'd died at some point, stories and jokes and things — mostly light-hearted, but that they were talking about dead people meant the spectre of mortality was hanging over them the whole time. And adding to the spookiness, there were...well, people telling each other ghost stories, basically, though a lot of it ended up being about faeries and elves and shite too. (Because the point wasn't ghosts in particular, just generally spooky things.) There was one middle-aged man telling stories to a clump of children complete with silly faces and dramatic sound-effects, to the squeals and giggles of the kids, which was honestly kind of adorable.
There was food, the normal things they got around here, but also way more apples and nuts than usual. In fact, there were enough apples around that Beth assumed there was maybe a reason for that, that something about Hallowe'en just called for apples — there were sauces and baked things, even stews that had apples in them (which was a little weird), but also just apples sitting out that people could take and eat. They were kind of funny, looked different from the apples she was used to from the future, a bit smaller and way more lopsided, the shapes far more inconsistent than ones laid out at a grocer's, and also tasted different. Noticeably more sour, but also way more flavourful in general (even if Beth couldn't say how, exactly, just, extra apple-y) — different, but not bad, honestly.
She was starting to think future people had bred apples to be sweeter, but in the process accidentally made them really bland. Apples here weren't better, but Beth also wouldn't say they were worse, so all the effort put into breeding them sweeter seemed kind of pointless.
Beth didn't really get into it too much, just kind of...floating around at the edges, watching and listening. Not entirely by herself, people did talk to her now and then. She actually talked with Godric for a while — sitting a bit back from the fire (so there were fewer people around to interrupt), a borrowed cloak hugged tight around her against the evening chill (the one the village she'd arrived in had given her had been destroyed in the fight), poking at stew and sipping at cider. Godric told her about his sister, stories from before. Though his sister was still alive, Sylvi had put her with some other noble family he knew — she was uncomfortable being around Godric now, since he had accidentally killed most of their family. (He was obviously unhappy about her not being here, with him, but he understood the why, so he hadn't protested.) Apparently, Sylvi had passed word along that his sister was a mage too, and would be getting lessons from the family he'd put her with when she was ready — she had just gone through a lot, so it might be a while — which wasn't really a surprise, the siblings of muggleborns were often also muggleborns.
Though, when Beth thought about it, it was possible that Godric's parents were mages, so he wasn't technically muggleborn, but that they were dirt-poor peasants who hadn't the connections to get lessons, and definitely couldn't afford wands. They might not have even have known, since it wasn't like everyone here got a letter from Hogwarts when they turned eleven. Beth wondered how often that happened. Probably a lot.
Returning the favour, Beth talked a little bit about her friends back home — carefully, trying not to give away anything that might not be safe for people to know about the future. Godric did know where (when) she came from, though they hadn't talked about it much, but just because he knew didn't mean it was safe to tell him everything. Beth hadn't forgotten that the Founders should be around somewhere, it was very possible Godric had or soon would meet them at some point, so she shouldn't talk about Hogwarts at all, or... Well, it was a little complicated, was all. It didn't help that she'd left them, she'd led them into a trap and then left, they might all be dead now and it was all her fault...
Anyway. People from the family would turn up now and then, apparently just to make sure she wasn't miserable sitting off on her own out here. Sylvi herself — because she was being a girl, in public, she got a few funny looks now and then but it seemed people here were used to Sylvi being bloody weird — guessed that Beth was feeling guilty for leaving people behind, despite Beth not yet having told anyone about what happened in the Ministry, because she was annoyingly perceptive like that. Because she was also surprisingly nice, she didn't try to press Beth into talking about it, just asked if Beth wanted to join them or do...things, whatever. So, as awkward as that conversation was, it could have been much worse.
Sylvi was kind of nosey, Beth had noticed, but at least she had the decency to respect people's desire to be left well enough alone. Which put her head and shoulders above the magical nobility back home, so Beth wasn't really complaining.
At one point, Ceinwen ran up to her, followed by a small pack of children, grinning and bouncing excitedly on her toes and... Well, Beth wasn't certain, her Cambrian still wasn't perfect and children tended not to talk quite correctly (which could make them harder to follow), but she had the feeling Ceinwen was bragging to the other kids about this cool older girl she knew. After playing along with the whole oh yes, I am a very powerful mage, and me and Ceinwen definitely are friends, aren't we so very cool thing for a little bit (Ceinwen was very cute, which was definitely cheating), she sent them all off with an illusion of sparkly rainbow blobs of light fluttering across the ground, the kids squealing and giggling and chasing after the things. They wouldn't last very long, but long enough to entertain them for a minute, and for Beth to slip away while they were distracted.
She couldn't help chuckling to herself a little — she used to do the same thing with Crookshanks sometimes, that's why she knew that spell in the first place...
Beth was waiting to refill her cider — there wasn't a line, exactly, but there was large enough of a clump of people waiting their turn that Beth had to wait for a little bit — when she noticed a girl. Or, a woman, she should say (she wasn't about to make that mistake again), maybe a couple years older than Beth at most. Her cloak had been pushed back behind her shoulders (the fire reduced the cold enough they didn't really need them), a cloth wrapped around her neck that Beth was pretty sure was a veil — most of the women had covered their hair during the ceremony itself, many letting it loose again as soon as the party started — firelight glinting orange off of deep black curls, round cheeks almost glowing in the night from reflected light, pointed nose casting a shadow across her face. She was standing at an angle that Beth could make out a subtle outline of her figure (as much as was possible through the baggy, thick clothes people here wore), and Beth was maybe a little tipsy, couldn't help staring a little, didn't even quite realise she was doing it at first...
The woman glanced her way, and their eyes met. Just for a second, because Beth immediately looked away, gritting her teeth at the warmth on her face. Maybe more cider wasn't a good idea, if she was just going to end up staring at women, someone might notice...
And it seemed someone had noticed. After a little wavering, Beth got more cider anyway — this stuff was pretty damn good — and detoured to pick out another apple quick — because tonight was all apples, apparently — and found herself a spot to sit, on an abandoned log a little bit out of the way. Cider set on the ground between her feet, she pulled out her knife and (wiping the blade on her tuyc first quick) started cutting slices off the apple, watching the fire dance and idly listening to more fairy stories from a group nearby. But she wasn't left alone for long — she was only two little slices of apple in when someone walked up to her.
Beth glanced up, immediately recognised the woman she'd been staring at a minute ago, and stared down at her apple, focusing on getting off another slice. She had a bad feeling this was about to be painfully awkward.
"Hello," the woman chirped. Without waiting for a response, she swished down to a seat on the log next to Beth, quick enough her cloak continued on to brush against Beth's back. "Excuse me, you're Lisbeþ, yes? The Saxon mage who fought the Danes at Penfro."
"Yes." Though Beth hadn't learned until afterward that the town they'd arrived in was called Penfro, which she was pretty sure was Pembroke. Of course, Beth wasn't surprised that that was the first thing this woman thought of, apparently the story had gotten around...and then there was the ceremony a couple hours ago now...
"Nice to meet you, Lisbeþ. My name is Dyðgech."
Cambrian names still sounded so weird to her sometimes. She realised that was supposed to be a pretty name — it meant, like, precious day or some shite like that — but it still sounded harsh to Beth's ears. Especially that last syllable gech, weird. "Dyðgech." She was ninety per cent certain she'd pronounced that right. "Um. Hello." Oh god, she had no idea what to say, this was so awkward, ugh...
And it kept on going being awkward. It didn't help that Dyðgech asked her about the fight and everything — and seemed a little surprised that Beth apparently wasn't proud of it. Which, okay, she was good at battlemagic, she'd admit that, and she was glad that they'd fought the vikings off and they weren't able to kidnap people and take them off who knew where, but being proud of how much killing people she'd done seemed like a really weird thing to do. Glad she could help, sure, but not proud. Why she'd gone off practically on her own was easier to answer, at least — because she was a fucking crazy person, obviously, it'd just seemed like the thing to do at the time.
Thankfully, she did go into less uncomfortable things eventually...in a manner of speaking. Beth couldn't exactly talk about her family and where she came from — she was very much aware of the fact that she shouldn't tell the truth, and she didn't trust herself to keep the shite Godric told her about his family straight when she'd had alcohol — but luckily Godric had told everyone what had gone on with him so she could just say she didn't want to talk about it and Dyðgech sympathetically accepted that. Dyðgech's father was apparently a craftsman around here somewhere, a carpenter or something (working with wood, definitely, but Beth wasn't sure exactly how), so that was a whole thing, and much easier to talk about. Though Beth didn't remember the details of the conversation, honestly, not like the words being said had mattered all that much.
Slowly munching away at her apple, sipping at her cider, Beth was terribly uncomfortable pretty much the whole time. Dyðgech hadn't said anything, so Beth didn't know if she'd noticed, and she was being perfectly nice, but Beth couldn't help worrying she would...she didn't know, confront her about it or something. Of course, Beth was so incredibly thick that she didn't figure out what was going on until — as Dyðgech talked about...something to do with one of her friends, Beth had quite abruptly lost the thread — there was a gentle touch through her tuyc, Dyðgech's fingers cautiously brushing along Beth's arm.
It sank in, slowly — Beth freezing with her knife stuck into the apple, fragrant smoke scratching at her eyes and tickling in her throat, staring down at the ground in front of her, dirt and stone glowing from the fire stitched with long shadows thrown by grass and passing people — that this mediaeval peasant woman was coming on to her.
This was hardly the first time something like this had happened since showing up in the past. Beth had kind of assumed that people would be... Well, people here were super religious and everything, and religious people could be extremely prudish about...sex stuff, and whatever. Beth had learned that it was actually a lot more complicated than that — in general, but also just because Wales was weird. For example, divorce was legal here — though only for certain reasons, like if the husband cheated or was an abusive arse — and bastards weren't really considered any different from "legitimate" sons, which were both against Church law. Hell, men were even allowed to have a mistress or two besides their wife (though of course basically only a rich people thing)...though it was considered cheating if the mistress wasn't official (though Beth had no idea how that was supposed to come about), which was fucking weird...
From what Beth could tell, mostly overhearing people talk, people here were more open about sex than in...well, not magical Britain — far too many mages in her time seemed to have absolutely no shame whatsoever — but what she remembered from modern muggle England, yes. It didn't reflect well on you to be crude about it, but... When Sylvi had explained, months ago now, that as long as people weren't going around boasting about it, or getting wrapped up in anything scandalous (like adultery), and were keeping it to themselves, what they got up to really wasn't anyone else's business — that did seem to be the rule here, for the most part. There were exceptions, yes, and an occasional nosey person, but generally speaking.
And there was plenty of premarital screwing going on. It turned out people tended to get married later than she'd expected (early twenties was pretty common) and, well, teenagers would be teenagers no matter the century. Though, they were rather more careful about it than Beth's classmates at Hogwarts — after all, they didn't exactly have modern birth control. Hunyð had mentioned, in their potions talks, that there were potions that would end a pregnancy, though only if taken early on, and that was pretty much it. (And this was even legal, which Beth also hadn't expected, though forcing a miscarriage later along, which was dangerous but possible, was very much not legal.) From what she'd heard, young people fooling around in ways that didn't risk pregnancy (and kept a woman's virginity intact, if only technically, which was something people did care about here) was commonplace, and not really something people spent too much time fussing over. And sometimes accidental pregnancies did happen, but...
Well, usually that just meant they had to get married. Sometimes that could take a while, since there were things to arrange — there was property that was supposed to change hands between the families on a marriage, it was complicated (and Beth hadn't paid that much attention, since it wasn't her problem) — so the kid might end up being born out of wedlock...but people didn't really care about that so much. Sometimes it could turn into a scandal if the families didn't like each other (or they were in the same family), but it generally wasn't a big deal.
And Beth had gotten some attention before, because... Well, she didn't know why, exactly. Maybe just because she looked different, so people noticed — red hair was rare here, and her hair was a very weird red red that most people had never seen before. (Beth was pretty sure it was magic.) She was old enough, but not married, and didn't even have a family who might make a fuss, so there was that. And she was told she had a pretty face, which was news to her, but she was also told that mages tended to have relatively unblemished skin just in general, due to their greater resistance against infections or scarring from sunburn or frostbite, so she guessed that might have something to do with it. Also, she was a mage, and mages tended to have better life prospects just in general, and since there wasn't a family to barter for her hand with, she was also attractive for that reason.
...And there were cultural reasons too. Apparently, and Beth hadn't realised this beforehand, charging out on her own to fight vikings at terrible odds to protect people she'd never met, and managing to kick arse through power, skill, and sheer dumb luck (as McGonagall would put it), yeah, turned out people here thought that was extremely sexy. She'd been getting a lot more attention ever since that happened.
Kind of an uncomfortable amount of attention, honestly, she'd turned down so many blokes by now, especially the family's warriors young enough to still be unmarried but also random farmers and shite, it was a whole thing.
She'd never been hit on by a woman before, though.
And so Beth froze. She had absolutely no idea what to do.
Beth hadn't exactly been talking very much before, but Dyðgech wasn't completely blind, so she must have realised Beth was kind of silently freaking out a little. Her hand left Beth's arm, leaning back a little. "I can leave you be, if you like."
She'd had too much cider for this, her head was almost spinning — from panic more than alcohol, but she was certain the alcohol didn't help. This was maybe not the best time for something like this to be happening, Beth had had too much cider for this, but, she, just, it wasn't— "No. Um. No, it's okay. I... You can stay." She felt weirdly grateful that she could blame her inability to figure out what the fuck to say on not being very good with the language yet.
"Good." Beth wasn't looking, at the moment, but she could hear the smile on the woman's face. And she shuffled a little closer again, her knee touching Beth's, fingers light and teasing finding her arm.
They fell quiet, then, sitting wordless for... Well, a while, anyway, Beth honestly had no idea. She hadn't had a great sense of time before — if Hermione didn't nudge her along Beth would have been late to so many things, it was kind of embarrassing — and not having clocks around hadn't helped...not to mention, the cider. Or, they weren't entirely silent, they did talk a little. They were within earshot of a group telling each other silly spooky stories, and either one of them would comment now and then, muttering to each other so the group wouldn't hear them (didn't want to be rude). Since Beth had a local on hand, she could actually ask about some of the more confusing bits — there were different myths and things people here knew, which she didn't, obviously, and it could make stories and things kind of difficult to understand sometimes. Thankfully, that wasn't a suspicious thing to ask about, Dyðgech would just write it off as the English having different legends and fairies and monsters and things...
Not that they would follow a conversational thread very far. It was really more filling the air than anything, and it was hard to concentrate on any one thing for very long. Dyðgech kept distracting her. Fingers come up to Beth's hand, nails lightly dragging along her wrist or the back of her hand, pads gently fluttering up and down the length of Beth's fingers — and Beth slowly started to play along, fingers in a slow, subtle dance over their knees, her eyes flickering around, but nobody was paying them any particular attention. Beth started a little at a touch on the side of her leg, soft and slow, if Beth hadn't already been keyed up with almost electric tension, the fire flashing in her eyes and laughter sparking in her ears, she might not have noticed at all. Like with Beth's arm before, Dyðgech fell into a pattern of gently stroking Beth's thigh through the cloth of her tuyc, up and down, up and down...
Beth's heart was pounding in her chest, echoing in her fingertips and her teeth, weirdly (she was pretty sure teeth didn't even have blood vessels in them?), her breath stolen from her throat, almost enough she felt faintly dizzy (or maybe that was just the cider, she had managed to drink most of it at some point). Her face and hands suddenly burning, she couldn't stop thinking about the fact that she was wearing only this tuyc, her peis under it, only two layers of cloth between—
The fingers trailing along her leg suddenly zig-zagged, cutting high across her thigh toward the inside—
Beth jumped, intense tingles sweeping over her skin, her hand snapped down to clamp down on Dyðgech's wrist. The tension electric, she could almost feel her hair standing up, the air too thick, Beth opened her mouth to say something and didn't manage it, blanking on the words.
From closer than she'd been before, her voice a hiss, Dyðgech hissed, "Is this good or bad? I'm sorry, I can't tell."
Well, she wasn't the only one. Beth's mouth worked silently for a moment, words held at the back of her throat, ooh, this wasn't good, this shouldn't be happening now, this was not something she was equipped to deal with when she'd had too much alcohol, and on Hallowe'en of all days... "I'm not— I don't know. Just surprised, I think."
Dyðgech let out a little hum, long and low, thoughtful. "You're so nervous. You can fly out alone but for your cousin to fight how many Danes, but you're frightened of me?"
"...I fought before that."
"Oh. Oh, I see. Well, I'm honoured, then." It was said with a shade of humour at the edge of her voice, but Beth didn't think she was laughing at her...probably.
She bit her lip, wavering — Beth had the feeling Dyðgech was reading into that something more than what she'd meant. Beth had kissed girls before...well, girl, just Katie. And she'd been this close with Luna before, even doing a similar kind of more-than-friendly teasing touching, but... Well, the direction Dyðgech's hand had been going in a second ago had been...startling, that was all.
Dyðgech slipped closer, Beth could feel the warmth through the sleeve of her tuyc, her chin tipping over Beth's shoulder, hair scratching at her neck. "How about..." Breath brushing over her ear and down her neck, hot, sharp tingles running down her spine, Beth shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut. "...That shiver, good or bad?"
"...Good." In fact, she was feeling very warm and— Yes, good. Kind of intense, and her head was spinning a little, she wished she'd had less cider, but good.
"Good. As shy as you are, what do you say we go somewhere there will be fewer eyes about?" The words slowed as she went, vowels long and striking the consonants a little harder, making puffs of air, Beth shivered again, her head twitching away.
Dyðgech wasn't suggesting... No, Beth couldn't even try to convince herself of that for a few seconds — Dyðgech was suggesting. Her breath catching in her throat again, Beth stared blindly at the fire, laughter ringing in her ears, face burning and heartbeat throbbing in her fingertips and her teeth, her chest tight and...
She was tempted.
Extremely tempted.
She probably shouldn't. She didn't know this girl at all, they hadn't met before today — she lived in the town, so Beth had almost certainly seen her in passing before, but that didn't count. It was probably a risky thing to do, they might be— Well, no, they wouldn't be caught, Beth could just put up palings first, but people might find out, and as much as Sylvi had said nobody cared that wasn't entirely true, some people would make a fuss about it. And Beth wasn't entirely in her right mind, of course, couldn't forget about that. She had had cider, enough the night had stopped feeling cold (or maybe she was just blushing that much), her head spinning just a little (not the gin tastes like Christmas spinning, but), and she was aware she wasn't in a great mental space right now, what with accidentally leaving her friends to die, and the battle in Penfro, and this was going to be her life now, as nice as Sylvi and her family were, she– they didn't replace her people back home, and she couldn't—
(She was probably less okay than she seemed most of the time, even to herself.)
It probably wasn't a good idea. Stupid, reckless, she really shouldn't even be considering this, she shouldn't have even let it get this far.
But, when had Beth ever not been stupid and reckless?
Her mouth feeling suddenly dry, Beth reached for her cider, moving suddenly enough her shoulder kind of clunked Dyðgech's chin a little (oops). There wasn't much left, she just downed the rest of it — and was then stuck swallowing the too-large mouthful in smaller bits while Dyðgech waited, ugh, awkward. Dropping the mug, Beth cleared her throat. (Oh this was a terrible idea, she couldn't really be considering this, what was she—) "Okay. I don't know what... I mean, yes, okay."
Dyðgech let out a little breathy chuckle. "So nervous. Come."
When Beth stood, she nearly fell right over again — she wasn't really that drunk, but popping up to her feet that quickly made her dizzy — Dyðgech caught her by the elbows, Beth barely managed to avoid clonking their heads together like a clumsy idiot, hair brushing against her face (smoke and sweat and a sharp herby green smell Beth knew was a soap of some kind). Dyðgech giggled at her a little, started leading her off into the night by the hand, cutting around the edge of the party toward town.
Beth followed after her, her steps feeling oddly numb, her head a confused storm of thoughts too scattered for her to pick out. An occasional colour flashed before her eyes in the night, the fires against the black, reflecting off of people's faces, the few people around with lighter-coloured hair seeming to glow, glints of light against polished metal or glass sparkling at wrists and necks. Voices rang in her ears, but wordless, none of the meaning getting through, blank as the laughter rising now and then, half drowned-out by the pounding of her own heart, throbbing through her head and down to her fingertips. The breeze played with her hair, tickling her neck, the hem of her tuyc fluttering against her legs...
Dyðgech led them into the town, for a second Beth thought they were going to her house (which was maybe a bad idea, she still lived with her parents, who knew when they'd be getting home), but instead she continued on to the circular stone wall, started following the curve to the left. The not-castle was on a little hill, overlooking the lake, the land here mostly left alone, grass tickling her ankles, the occasional rock poking at the bottoms of her bare feet. (Her charms had worn off, but she wasn't going to need them soon anyway.) It was much quieter over here, silent but for the distant muttering of voices, now and then a noise from farm animals somewhere, a call from an owl, the hiss of the wind in the trees, the gentle lapping of water against the shore...
There was a spot on the hill facing the lake where the hill flattened a bit, before dropping more quickly to the shore a few metres away from the wall, more than enough room here for a few people to comfortably move about. Though there was no one here now, the only signs of human presence the glow of bonfires in the distance. There would be guards on the walls here and there, but Beth saw no sign of them. The night still and quiet and empty around them, she and Dyðgech were alone.
The wind tugging at her hair cool and wet — Dyðgech had pulled her cloak tighter around her with her free hand as they walked, but Beth hadn't bothered, it was chilly but not that bad — Beth tipped her head back for a moment, looking up at the sky. It was an overcast night, the stars hidden with a rolling blanket of clouds, almost invisible in the darkness, only faint contours in slightly lighter greys. There was a dim silvery glow in one spot, the moon not quite shining through.
Dyðgech turned to face her, her other hand finding Beth's, her smile almost entirely hidden in shadow. "This is better, hmm?"
Yes. Yes, it was. Much less potentially embarrassing, at least. Dyðgech shuffled closer, close enough the skirts of their tuygau rustled against each other, Beth could hardly breathe, watching her approach, head tipping up a little — because Beth was annoyingly short, even a thousand bloody years in the past, but at least Dyðgech wasn't that much taller than her. Dyðgech slowly inched closer, distant reflected lights glittering in her eyes, Beth's breath caught in her throat and her heart pounding, the echo in her fingertips only more obvious with Dyðgech's loose grip on her hands, and—
"Wait!" Dyðgech froze, tipped back a little bit. "Um, wait a moment, please, I want to..." Beth wormed her hand free, drawing her wand with a flick of her wrist. One paling, and then another, hmm, might as well do something about the cold as long as she was at it — Dyðgech twitched at the sudden warmth, letting out a soft little oh! — and was there anything else... No, probably not. "I need my other hand, only for a moment, here..." It took a little bit of kicking around near the bottom of the wall to find a loose bit of rock she could use, a few runes cut into it would anchor her palings. There. "It's finished. No one will see or hear us, now."
"Oh! How clever, the things mages can do sometimes." Dyðgech had removed her cloak, no longer needed in the warmth of Beth's environmental paling — something Hermione had taught her for sitting out on the grounds, Beth was the more powerful of the two of them and could hold it easier — laying it out on the grass. Walking back toward Beth, slow and drifting, Dyðgech smirked — at least, Beth thought so, it was too dark to be sure. "You worry someone will hear us? What do you have planned, I wonder?"
Beth's face went so red it was honestly almost physically painful. "Um, I thought– well..." She was certain she hadn't misread what Dyðgech had been suggesting, she hadn't exactly been being subtle back at the fire, but...
Oh shite, her stammering was in English, um...
And apparently Dyðgech was just teasing again, because she giggled some more, soft and light, the sound only making Beth blush even hotter (which didn't seem like it should be possible), and then Dyðgech was right there, and—
The first kiss was soft, but Beth twitched almost hard enough to break it right away — somehow, she'd managed to not see it coming, like a complete bumbling idiot. Her head completely blanked with surprise for a moment, which was fucking stupid, what did she think was about to happen, a hot sharp thrill running over her head to toe—
It wasn't a conscious decision, Beth wasn't even entirely aware of it happening, as though she'd blinked and missed it. There'd been an idle worry, flickering in her head on the way here, that she didn't really know what she was doing, she didn't exactly have a lot of experience with this stuff, she'd probably put Dyðgech off by being clumsy and whatever, but all that evaporated in an instant. Her hands were buried deep in Dyðgech's hair, fingers curling around the back of her head, thick and scratching against her skin, Dyðgech's hands fisted in Beth's cloak near her waist, pulling toward herself, cloth taught around Beth hugging her against Dyðgech, her spine forced to curve back a little. One kiss led into the next, Beth was honestly only even half-conscious of them, warm and soft and ugh, words, she could hardly even think, head a crowded smear of jittering something, tense tingles flaring across her shoulders and breath catching hard in her chest, clenching tight and hot, kisses turning harder and longer as they went on, the whatever in her head only getting louder, Beth could almost hear it ringing in her ears, burning unpleasantly warm now, kind of wished she'd gotten her cloak all the way off first...
Dyðgech surprised her again, when Beth broke for a second to breathe — only realising as she did how badly she needed it, must have been forgetting to — with something smooth and hot and wet against Beth's lip, an odd slithering shiver working down her spine. Breath coming out in a gasp, her mouth dropping open a little, and Dyðgech leapt on that, covering Beth's mouth with hers, Beth didn't know what she was doing — she'd kissed Katie a little, but this was a new one on her — but following along as best she could, Dyðgech's breath passing over her lips making her hair stand on end, twitching again with another odd shiver as Dyðgech's tongue ran along the inside edge of her lower lip, ooh, what the hell...
Beth was only vaguely aware of tipping back a step, and then another, Dyðgech slowly pushing her back — Beth didn't even know if it was on purpose, she was kind of dizzy at the moment, it was possible she was simply failing to stand up properly. Dyðgech broke from the kiss for a moment, Beth's lips tingling and her breath coming thin, the pressure of her cloak around her loosened, Dyðgech's forehead resting against Beth's, her breath playing over her chin and her neck and across her collar. And then Dyðgech's hands were back, pressing in at her hips, Beth twitched in surprise and, hmm, under her cloak now, following the curve of her hips back, pulling her in flush against Dyðgech, her breasts pressing against her, her fingers splayed low on her back, the pressure enough Beth imagined she could feel each individual one, the tips reaching down far enough to almost, well, her fingertips might be below the band of her knickers...if she were wearing knickers, that is.
A hoarse breath dragged through her throat, her hands shifting in Dyðgech's hair, dark curls tumbling between her fingers, Beth's elbows levering over Dyðgech's to pull her closer, her head tilting a little to take their lips just barely touching, breath tickling across her skin. Tipping on her toes, pushing against her, Beth felt little tines of heat sparking between her legs, her spine curling a little to keep her face at the right angle, because this was happening now, oh jeez...
"Good or bad?" Dyðgech whispered, her lips fluttering against Beth's — her fingers pressing harder against Beth's back and releasing in a little wave, to make it clear what she meant. Also, Beth was positive Dyðgech was just teasing her, there was no way she couldn't know the answer to that already, a little lilt on her voice.
Beth let out a little huff through her nose. Instead of answering out loud, she gently tugged on Dyðgech's hair, bringing their lips together again.
Very very warm, distracting tingles running down her spine, her heart thumping and her stomach swooping, Beth couldn't hear anything but the rustle of cloth shifting against cloth, the rasp of their breath, the occasional odd smacking noise when their mouth caught funny somehow — the first time it happened, Beth broke to giggle, nervous and dizzy and breathless, didn't know why that was so funny, but Dyðgech dipped to catch her lips before she could stop, half-smothered laughter throbbing in her throat — their surroundings completely faded away, Beth was only vaguely aware of tipping back another couple steps, Dyðgech's hair in her hands and her lips and her breath — Beth twitched when Dyðgech gently caught Beth's lip with her teeth, an odd ecstatic lurch thumping through her body, like abruptly dipping a few feet on her broom, oh jeez — hands on Beth's back pulling her closer, shifting now and then, thumbs pressing down along the curve of bone making her skin crawl, electric, she could almost feel her hair standing on end, the distracting tines of heat growing sharper, oh, mm—
Beth jumped, surprised, when she suddenly felt something behind her, hard and flat, as Dyðgech pushed against her, her head clunking — not hard enough to hurt, but did startle her a little — Beth realised, dim through a haze, that this was the ring wall. Dyðgech kept advancing until Beth was pinned against stone, her shoulders flat against it, Dyðgech's hands in the way forcing her spine to curl, her breath catching again.
While she scrambled for breath, Dyðgech dipped away — as short as Beth was, she probably had to bend her back at an awkward angle to manage that — lips fluttering light over Beth's throat, making her skin crawl and heart pound in her teeth and the tips of her fingers and between her legs, her toes gripping the dirt, and I'm trying to breathe, here, oh jeez oh jeez... "Good or bad?"
Her answer was delayed for a moment by a light nip of teeth low on her throat, a little fluttering something slipping past her lips, almost shaking with tension, she shifted in place a little, squirming an inch, trapped between Dyðgech in front and the stone wall behind. (She could feel the chill through her clothes, but she didn't really care at the moment.) She didn't know what part Dyðgech was referring to, but it didn't matter, it was still, "Good."
Dyðgech twitched, head tipping up again, the pressure pinning Beth in place lightening just a little. It was too dark to tell, but Beth thought she was giving her some kind of look. "What?"
...That was snake-speak. Oops. "Oh, sorry, good, I said good."
Dyðgech kept looking at her, and for a second Beth thought, well, that she wasn't going to react to that too well — it seemed like talking to snakes was probably the sort of thing Christians wouldn't like much (though it hadn't come up yet) — but after another moment Dyðgech was pressing in again, her face closing in, curly black hair (Beth had mussed it up a little) hiding the night behind her, close enough Beth couldn't see anything else, breath sliding along her throat and nose slipping against hers and lips just at the edge of touching, tickled. The pressure light, barely there, a soft whisper of a kiss before pulling a centimetre away again, Beth's breath stuttered, Dyðgech let out a quiet little hum, before giving her another slow, gentle kiss, then another.
Despite the sudden tempo change, Beth still felt uncomfortably hot, she thought she might even be sweating, her skin tingling with each subtle change of Dyðgech's weight, she kind of wished she'd taken her cloak of first, it was hard to hold in the urge to move, feeling almost painfully tense...
Dyðgech's hands moving, fingers tracing over her hips, didn't make that urge any less. Letting out a little chuckle, Dyðgech hissed, breath tickling Beth's lips and making her hair shift, tickling her ears too. Beth didn't understand it though, you're all something, her Cambrian still wasn't great. "What?"
A little chuckle in the back of her throat, she said, "Moving, in little bits, back and forth. Like you're trying to escape."
Oh, squirming, that was it, you keep squirming, she got it now. Beth didn't know what to say — her face burning, but that could be for any reason, really — so she just settled with, "Mhmm."
"Oh?" Dyðgech's hands had moved all the way from her back, enough her weight was making Beth's back collapse all the way against the stone, hips to shoulders — a little chilly against her hot skin, even through a few layers of cloth. "Are you trying to get away from me?" whispered from close enough that each flick of Dyðgech's lips had them brushing against Beth's.
She shuddered. "No." She didn't know how to say that she always felt an urge to move when she was distractingly turned on in Cambrian. Though even if she did know how, she probably wouldn't have had the nerve to actually say it.
"Mm." One hand fingering the shell of Beth's hip, the other was on her thigh, fingers scrunching, curling up, pressing down against Beth's skin — the hem of her tuyc dragged against her legs upward, just a little. "If you wish to leave, it's not for me to keep you here." A pinched bit of cloth held in place, some of Dyðgech's fingers reached out and scrunched again, gathering more cloth into a little ball in her hand...and pulling the hem of Beth's skirt up another couple inches.
Her breath catching in her throat, stomach squirming and tingles almost painful along her shoulders, oh jeez oh jeez... "Um." She swallowed. "You know I don't want to leave. You're teasing me."
The ball growing larger with another scrunch of her fingers, the faint impression of Dyðgech's lips against hers shifted a little — Beth thought she might be smirking. "A little, yes. Is that bad?" she asked, a note on her voice Beth couldn't quite read (the whispering didn't make it easy), pulling her skirt up a little further.
Beth let out a breathless huff. No, not really.
"You're so nervous." Another pull, another kiss, soft and lingering, Beth could feel her pulse in her lips. "Fearsome warrior like you, and here you are shaking."
Okay, Beth didn't really think she was fearsome...but then, all the men she'd cursed to bits at Penfro, easily with hardly more than a wave of her wand, maybe she was? That was a weird thought, didn't know how to feel about that...muggles were just surprisingly easy to kill with magic...
Before she could get too far down that dark train of thought, she felt a touch against her thigh — without a couple of layers of cloth between, skin warm and smooth — she twitched, her stomach giving an odd lurch. "Good or bad?" Dyðgech hissed, her fingers lightly tracing along Beth's thigh.
"Good." A little scary and, um, something, but definitely not bad.
Her lips hovering just barely not-touching Beth's, her fingers moving in little wandering circles...except not circles, because they slowly drifted upward, her wrist dragging up the hem of Beth's tuyc as she went, Beth's breath turning harsh in her throat, her hands reflexively tightening in Dyðgech's hair (oops) and her toes gripping the dirt — and, yes, she was shaking a little. She could feel a chill on her legs as her skirt was pulled up, but it wasn't so bad, she did have a paling up, no, it wasn't that kind of shivering. "Good or bad?"
It took a couple seconds for Beth to find her voice. "Good."
"Mm." A soft kiss on her lips, lingering for a moment, then surprising her with a flick of her tongue on Beth's lip, even as her fingers got up to the join of her hip — head tilting a little, thoughtfully, Beth thought, noticing she wasn't wearing knickers — with a startled breath, Beth's lips had parted a little, and Dyðgech leapt at it (again, she seemed to like doing that), still a gentle, slow, lingering kiss, but open-mouthed this time, hot and wet and Beth had already barely been able to breathe, covering her mouth wasn't helping, Beth let out a humm without meaning to, she could taste a hint of greens and mead on Dyðgech's tongue, sweat and smoke and the odd herby soap people here used surrounding her, Dyðgech's fingers starting to slowly drift to the side, Beth's spine tingling and her heart pounding in her teeth and her fingertips, heat growing incredibly distracting...
Dyðgech's fingertips slowly dragging across the edge of her mound, light and almost ticklish, Beth felt the vibration more than she actually heard the noise from her own throat, her skin crawling and her fingers fisting in Dyðgech's hair, shivering, she could feel a droplet shaken loose dribbling along, oh jeez, Beth's hips rolled against Dyðgech without really meaning to, maybe squishing Dyðgech's hand between them a little, she just, almost painfully distracted, she couldn't help it, she needed to move, oh jeez oh jeez...
Dyðgech pulled back, just a little, only enough to whisper, "Good or bad?"
A frustrated groan leapt out of Beth's throat before she could stop it — Dyðgech was going to keep doing that all the way through, wasn't she? "Good."
Her other hand tightening on Beth's hips a little, leaning her chest against hers, pinning her to the wall, fingers trailing downward, another lingering kiss, the weight pushing her back, Beth's heart pounding and skin crawling, not straight down but slipping a bit to the side trailing slowly along just at the edge, down for a bit before turning around back up, Beth shivered at another distracting drop slowly slid down only centimetres away, sharp heat pounding in time with her heart, almost painfully tense, hair shifting tickling against sensitive skin, then down the other way, smooth fingertips and the faint scratch of nails, right alongside, oh jeez...
Dyðgech's lips lifted a whisper away, Beth scrambling for breath, she must have been forgetting to do that... "Good or bad?"
"Good."
Hand slowly trailing back up, Beth thought Dyðgech was going to do that same frustrating circuit all over again — but then her fingers diverted, a hard gasp shocked out of Beth as they went were Beth needed them (finally, bloody tease). "Good or bad?"
"Good."
"...Good..."
"Haaa..."
"...or bad?"
"G-good..."
So, that's a thing. Squishy scenes continue to be hard, I have zero confidence that worked at all, but oh well.
Anyway, I was already partway through the next scene when I realised it was going to be much longer than I originally planned, so I decided to split the chapter here. That means there should still be two more chapters before a time skip and we start actually getting into the lead up to Hogwarts — and it will be only two chapters, the second one has seriously important shit in it but it shouldn't go on for too long. As I'm doing the alternating thing, I'm going to the next Children of the Gods chapter, which will be long and plot-critical, so it might be a little bit.
Updates have been slow recently in general, due to having a lot of difficult material close together — there was the duelling club in The Good War, and a squishy scene in By Gods Forsaken I was working on at the same time as this one (though the tone is rather different, I hope that came through right...) — and insomnia being a bitch, and also I was ill for like a week. I'm finally starting to get back into having 2k+ writing days again, though still inconsistently, we'll have to see how it goes.
Right, that's enough babbling from me. Until next time.