Disclaimer: The rights to the Harry Potter series go to J.K. Rowling. All original ideas present in this belong to me.
After announcing the abandonment of this story I immediately felt guilty. Two years and change of work, regardless of what I see the quality to be, is still a lot of time to be spent on one story.
My enjoyment, but more importantly, your enjoyment was something I'd forgotten about - having spent so much time focused on school and nothing but.
So, I'd like to say thank you. I think I may have that spark again.
I'm leaving the chapter 'Abandoned' up for posterity, as I still hate the beginning of this story. But, thankfully, that doesn't mean I can't try and end it as best as I can.
Chapter Forty-Seven | Awake
Fleur had always been afraid.
Anxious, her family called her. They were much kinder than her 'friends', who instead chose to deride her. "Touched in the head," they would say, making faces behind her back.
They all assumed it was something to do with being Veela, as if the creature inside her- the creature she was happened to be the cause of her fears.
She would laugh in private, knowing that they would never understand why it was that a woman one would assume to be brazenly confident upon first glance found herself staring at the wall at night. The way she desperately hung on to the thundering of her heart as she tried to avoid scampering into the washroom, hanging over a toilet with tears in her eyes and her dinner swimming in the water below.
Fleur found she wasn't afraid of much anymore, except herself.
A fear of what was, and what could be.
A fear stemmed from watching her lover, her everything battle with invisible creatures in the dark.
She had caught glimpses of them from the corner of her eyes, tiny things soaked in blood and nightmares that watched from cracks in the floor, speaking impossible riddles that threatened to tear her very mind in two.
How Helene dealt with them she had no idea, and she knew that when – not if – she finally went through whatever cataclysmic awakening she was bound to experience; she would finally go well and truly insane.
Not that she wasn't already dancing along the edge.
The lives she had taken, the manner in which she had spilled such a glorious river of blood…
She loved it.
How Macius had screamed just the other night as crows tore his flesh asunder, left to lay in agony for god knows how long, unable to so much as moan, let alone struggle.
She loved it, and it sickened her.
Poring over the tome she had… not stolen, she would say. No, reacquired, as it was hers to own and use... Fleur had learned marvelous, marvelous things from that tome.
A few spells stood out to her as ones she would have to attempt in the field, both for sheer efficacy as well as entertainment.
One turned the eyes of the afflicted into flesh-eating plants, tearing their skull apart from the inside. Another, something she imagined was a soon-to-be favourite of hers, spat an enormously caustic and viscous acid from the tip of one's wand. This acid in particular would cling to skin like nothing else, slowly eating away at the muscle and bone underneath until all that remained was a simmering paste.
Everything about the book seemed too… convenient to Fleur.
Hell, everything about everything seemed too convenient.
She wasn't entirely sure if it was simply the meddling of two omnipotent beings, but everything just came a touch too easy. The spells she flung from her wand felt innocuous, as if they had always been a part of her. Magic that should not, could not be easy, was.
That was what really, truly scared her.
"Yet, it should not."
Fleur closed the book, turning to see Life in all her immaterial glory perched upon the end of her table, feet pointed towards the floor as if those of a hanged man.
"What should not?"
"The magic, you should not fear it."
She cocked her head to the side inquisitively. "Why not? No one should have this much power, yet Helene and I, as well as Voldemort do. Why?"
Life simply smiled. "Because you do."
Feeling snappish, Fleur pushed the tome away, leaning her elbow on the desk. "What happened to Helene- "
"Was expected." Life clasped her hands together, resting them in her lap. "As will your… awakening, as you so choose to call it."
"When."
She smiled again, that damnable impossibly distant smile. "Soon."
Fleur jabbed one finger at the tome. "Will I find it in here?"
"No." Life shook her head. "I've come to tell you."
"Well, again, isn't that terribly convenient?"
"I am a God, everything we do is convenient. At least, for you, that is."
"Is it? I don't trust you the way Helene does, not after what I've seen, what I've done." She ran both hands over her face, exhaling sharply. "We've been twisted, and you know very well how much. You know the people we were before this. So, I'll ask you this now. Is this entertaining for you? Watching us struggle? Do you enjoy seeing Helene and I tear the innards out of a man as he screams for his parents for no other reason than because we can?"
Another smile. "Yes."
"So, you admit it. You get some sort of sick enjoyment out of this?"
Life tilted her head playfully. "Don't you? I can hear your every thought. You love what you do. You enjoy taking a life, even more so than Helene. She delights in it, yes, but mostly out of a misplaced sense of satisfaction. Taking her anger out on the very people who destroyed her life."
"Oh, but you love it." She leaned forward, hair laying across her chest like a curtain of precious satin. "Something deep down inside you rejoices every time you spill a man's intestines. Something even deeper screams out in joy when you slowly rip his arms from their sockets and allow that precious, precious blood of his to fall to the grass below.
"You are of me, of Life itself. You revel in the gift that it is, yet you also delight in the taking of it." She crossed her legs at the knee, a wide grin morphing across her face much more terrifying than any expression Death could ever muster. "Once you awaken, truly become one with what you are, it will be as natural as breathing."
"I don't want that!" Fleur shouted, bashing her fist against the desk, ignoring the part of her that shouted 'Yes, I do! I do!'
"I do not want to be some… monstre, whatever creature you want me to be!"
"It is already too late for the both of you. It's only a matter of time. Stop denying yourself."
Fleur gritted her teeth. "I will change, this is only temporary."
A laugh slipped from the Gods lips, the sound of tinkling church bells and monsters in the dark. Beings of pure, unfettered life given form. Antithesis.
"Temporary, you say? You've always been afraid, Fleur. I hear you. I know you – in and out. Why, you were thinking about it not five minutes ago." Her grin vanished in a moment, face as still as stone. "You are the balance. You are a creator. It is your job, your duty as that of Life to take just as easily as you give.
"That is the only way to truly create. You must understand what it means to take, to destroy. Many believe that Life and Death are but two sides of the same coin, yet… we are the same. We are Alpha and Omega, the First and Last, the Beginning and End." She paused; gaze steady. "You will take part in a ritual of my design. My creation."
Wiping the back of her hand against her forehead, Fleur slumped into her chair. "What is it."
"You must understand life, what it truly means to live. For that you must take one." The goddess flicked her wrist, conjuring up an image of the elderly woman – Marge – from the pub in Little Hangleton. "A full life, one long-lived. You will take her heart, still fresh, still beating… and of it you will feast."
Fleur paled. "What?"
Life ignored her. "You must suffuse the heart with your magic, my magic, and only then will you know what it truly means to be my champion."
"I can't just- " Fleur growled, the inhuman noise ripping from her throat. Her pupils had narrowed into slits, fangs peeking over lips and her chin and ears tapered into points. She was utterly consumed by her rage, scarcely aware of the prickling down her back as feathers poked from her skin, thin ribbons of blood trickling down her spine. "You expect me to kill her? Her? She has done nothing, nothing to warrant her death."
"No, she hasn't. Yet you will kill her all the same."
Fleur lied. "No, I refuse."
Life smiled, that same sickly thing that seemed to tear her face in two. "Yes, you will. Not tonight, not soon, but you will."
Roaring, Fleur threw the tome at Life's head.
The God disappeared in an instant, offering nothing but a playful wave as she vanished.
Slumping against her chair, Fleur stared into the distance.
She started making plans.
-::-
Helene conversed with herself, with the things that looked out at her from a realm of ash and blood and wrongwrongwrong.
Fleur watched her. How her lips moved yet nothing came out but sibilant whispers, something close to parseltongue but not quite. It was different. Off. The words were laced with a palpable tinge of Death and the absence of all that was.
She could see how reality shimmered as the hisses and sputters left her lips, like the way heat clung to the air and twisted it into fantastic, impossible shapes on a hot summer's day.
"Love," Fleur whispered, tasting it. "Who are you talking to?"
A smile crept across Helene's face. A tiny, hidden thing. "Sorry." Her head hung ever so slightly. "They talk, you know."
"What does?"
"I don't know what to call them. They just are." She stomped her foot and the floor warped, stone crumbling beneath her heel. "Some aren't very kind."
"Will I see them? Properly?" She left unmentioned the glimpses she had caught of the creatures. Things hidden away - red and vile - as if she could see the jagged, creeping path of nerves along the back of her eye.
"Yes."
Helene's statement was unequivocal, carrying a weight that her words normally did, yet somehow so much more.
She always had a way about her when she spoke.
She was crass, yes. Horribly so. Yet somehow she managed to make an impact, as if the words that flowed from her mouth were meteors falling to earth, terrible and cataclysmic.
When she said something, she meant it. Now, most of all - ever since the two of them visited that little shack.
Helene carried the void with her.
It followed in her steps as if a doting child, tickling at her ankles and resting atop her crown. A laurel of bone and creeping finality.
I wonder if something will follow me, Fleur mused, unable to think of any thing, any creature so impossible as the ones Helene described that she could associate with the being that called itself Life.
She could scarcely imagine the creatures that Helene spoke to, loved as if they were her very own.
Fleur knew Helene had yet to realize, yet she could see it. She could see it in the way her flinches and pained glances were becoming fewer and farther between, those looks slowly shifting to ones of affection. A spark that spoke of hearth and comfort that she had never seen dancing in her eyes.
"I know how."
That look on her face twisted, quickly replaced by one of sadness. Pity. "Fleur."
"I know."
Helene crept towards her. Fingers of bound and restless shadow brushed against her palm, cool to the touch, standing in stark disparition to the soft warmth that rested in the other. "How?"
She ground her teeth together, could hear the crunch of bone and sinew as something in her jaw popped. "I have to kill Marge, that woman from the pub."
"Fleur, I- "
"It's fine." She gripped Helene's hands like a lifeline, drowning in her confusion. "Life came to me, she told me it had to be done."
"Fleur, you don't have to do this."
A quiet huff escaped her as she shook her head. "No, I must. I need to." Her tongue traced over her lips, chapped and flaking. "I want to."
"But what does it cost, Fleur? If I'd known what I was getting into when I'd taken that potion…" She trailed off, haunted. "I don't think I would have taken so much as a sip."
"That's a lie and you know it."
Helene paused. "I know."
"What… what does it feel like?"
Helene closed her eyes, shoulders sagging. "Incredible, yet terrifying. It's something I can't even begin to explain, let alone understand." She looked down at their clasped hands, eyes lingering on the one that reeked of long-rotted corpses and the wailing of dying men. "I don't understand it myself. It just… it simply is. I feel whole, complete, and I've never been so terrified in my entire life."
"Not even when you died?"
Helene laughed, the sound more akin to a dry, hacking cough. "No, I was furious. I felt betrayed, lied to. I still do, I just know that- I don't know. I just know that this is supposed to happen somehow. Maybe it's because of what happened to me, maybe it was a part of me that always existed." She smiled. "I just know that it had to happen. It always would have."
Fleur let those words float about, mulling over what could and would be.
"You'll survive."
She guffawed, feeling somewhat hysterical. "Marge won't."
"I know." Helene's fingers dug into her palm. "But it will happen."
"Why?" Fleur screwed her eyes shut, fighting back against the warring voices inside her. Even her darker side, the one twisted by war and the crushing psychosis that comes from finding oneself not as dead as they believed, was quiet.
At least, not quite as loud.
Reluctance was a funny thing, she thought. She hadn't shown much of it over the last few years, only after she'd met Helene - be it under the guise of a hooded killer.
"I'm… something about me isn't right, Helene. I'm- "
"Bloodthirsty? Angry? Detached?" Helene squeezed her hands. "You think I don't feel the same? You think I haven't noticed what we're becoming? What- what we've already become?" She smiled, the terror in her eyes evident. "We're monsters, Fleur. We have been for a long time."
"But we don't kill innocents! We don't kill people who don't deserve it!"
"You think those recruits we slaughtered were beyond any sort of rehabilitation? That they couldn't become functioning members of society?" Helene laughed. "Criminals have always existed, do we just toss them in prison and torture them? Do we simply slit their throats and ignore the reasons as to why their atrocities were committed in the first place?
"What is happening in Britain, what has built up over the last century is systemic. Fear of the unknown, fear of losing what they perceive to be theirs and theirs alone… a few impassioned speeches and people can do terrible things that they believe to be justified. Those people weren't true Death Eaters, not yet."
"Then why did we slaughter them?"
"Because we could. Because we wanted to. Because we have to win." She took a deep breath. "Because somewhere deep down inside we're not entirely human anymore."
Fleur traced the lines of Helen's palm, the grooves broken by nicks and the knotted flesh of burn scars - dotted across her wrist like open sores. A remnant of Fleur's fire, so terribly hot as to mark even Helene.
But not unhealable. Not her magic.
"Why do you not heal these?" she asked.
"I didn't want to. They're a reminder to be more cautious in the future." Helene raised her disembodied hand, shadow like fire flaring dangerously as it moved. "Just like this is."
Fleur's brow furrowed, watching as the material of Helene's impromptu prosthetic shifted. It curled into itself, yet constantly grew outwards - ribbons of pale gray flickering to the surface - a kaleidoscope made up of nothingness incarnate.
"They're beautiful."
The pad of her thumb pressed to each and every pockmark that littered Helene's flesh and blood arm. She could feel the ridges, tight smooth scar tissue stretched tight like cloth pulled against an open cup.
"I want to do it."
Helene's lips pulled upwards.
It wasn't an expression that could be described as a smile, nor a grimace. It was more that of resignation.
"Okay."
-::-
They sat in the pub, nursing their drinks.
Fleur was thankful for the fact that alcohol could still dance within her veins, set its tiny pattering feet against her mind and dull the voice inside of her that screamed out in fury and horror at what was to come.
"I didn't think you would come so soon."
"Aren't you omniscient?" she asked, not bothering to so much as glance at Life.
Helene did (didn't do) the same.
"Of a sort." Fleur could hear the laugh in her voice. "I've seen this before, a long time ago."
She took a sip. "Will it hurt?"
"Physically? No."
Her lips curled against the glass, whether into a scowl or grin she couldn't tell, only that her face hurt to be pulled so violently.
Hysteria. Something Fleur was becoming familiar with.
"Go."
Life complied, out of respect she assumed, rather than annoyance - and disappeared into the ether.
"Are you okay?" Helene set her hand - gloved - on Fleur's wrist, fingers tracing the curve of bone and flesh that made up the hilt of her thumb.
"No."
Helene raised her finger, nodding at the barkeep.
Another drink to dull the pain. Another drink to hide the shame away. Another drink to make her forget the fact that she had grown to love the sight and smell of blood, the way it clung to the gaps between her fingers and dried to a tacky, crackling mess.
Another drink it was.
They waited in silence, the pub more akin to a funeral parlour with the two of them sat at the corner, an almost tangible gloom hanging above them, nestled in the rafters.
Margaret and George chose that time to appear, having been sat somewhere they couldn't see, tucked away in the dark. The elderly couple instantly spotted the two of them.
"Oh, would you look at that!" George crowed, patting his wife on the shoulder. "They're back!"
Fleur gripped the glass, fingers tightening uselessly against cheap glass. Her breath came out in sharp, short gasps, nails scraping against the bartop.
"Hey, you two." Helene waved them over. "How've you been?"
"Oh, we've been doing alright," Marge said, smiling. "What brought you two back to our little village?"
"We're just passing back through, headed down south now. Just going where the road takes us."
"Ain't that romantic."
George leaned on the counter. "You two like to come have a cuppa' tea? Give you one last send off? Can't imagine you'll be coming back here."
Fleur snorted, not even attempting to cover up the derision she felt toward herself, her existence, their existence.
"You alright, love?"
Apologetic, Helene waved them off. "Bit motion sick. She let me drive on our way in, just finished my learners."
He laughed. "Ah, that'll do it. Well, if you don't want to spend time with us aging pensioners…"
Fleur managed to muster her courage. "No, no, we'd love to." She stood up, tossing a few crumpled bills on the counter. "Thanks for inviting us."
They left the pub in silence. At least, Fleur was.
Helene chatted happily with the elderly couple as they strolled down dimly lit, winding streets, Little Hangleton almost painfully quiet beside the sharp chirp and whistle of a nightingale hidden in one of the many trees that dotted the path.
It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine-
On and on, like a mantra, she bundled that thought and held it tight against her chest like a newborn - cradled it in her arms and whispered sweet lies in its ear. Her ear.
She could already see the meat under her fingernails, could already see the horror in Margarets eyes, blood-shot and panicked. How they would burst in their sockets like fish eggs, spilling out across her cheeks and staining her lips in-
Fleur caught her breath.
One foot in front of the other. Lift at the thigh, toe up, heel planted against the pavement. Her shoes tapped, tapped, tapped, steady and solid as she walked - marched - towards the doom of this couple.
She couldn't let both of them live, not with the knowledge of what she was about to do.
She was going to break them. She was going to break herself, if she wasn't cracked and crumbling already.
Would her heart stop beating as Helene's had so long ago? Would the blood roaring in her ears finally quiet, leaving her alone with the voices in her head?
They stopped in front of a lovely little home, all brickwork and plaster and home. It disgusted her.
Dazed, Helene lead her inside. She could faintly hear her murmuring quietly.
'Too much to drink,' she said in muted tones, giving an apologetic look to the soon-to-be sacrifices.
She tried to pull a smile across her face, only managing a grimace. Her teeth chattered, fingers trembled, every nerve in her body simultaneously vibrant and dead. "Sorry."
"It's fine."
Marge could smile, and smile she did.
It was plain yet beautiful. Yellowed teeth crooked with age and bared in understanding, in some passing form of love one would hand to an acquaintance like a business card. Recognition and compassion all twisted together in a way only the elderly could manage.
She wondered if it came with age, before quickly pushing that line of thought away.
Years spent living was why she was here. Why Marge was chosen.
"Thank you," she muttered, taking the offered cup of tea and soaking in the warmth that bled from it.
She couldn't bear to take so much as a sip.
The tick, tock, tick of the clock on the wall seemed to bounce about in her skull, echoing endlessly. The world was beginning to turn, the carpet beneath her feet (shoes still on, she noted) seemed to run away from her, distant, yet growing impossibly, as if a mirage.
Little tendrils of tightly wound wool licked at the sides of her shoes, mingling with the dried dirt and blood that clung to rubber soles.
Helene gripped her arm, startling her. "You're not okay."
"No."
"It's fine." Her hold loosened a touch. "We don't have to- "
"No, we do."
"What do you have to do, love?"
For the first time since she'd walked through the door, Fleur looked up, staring into the eyes of the people she was about to murder.
She could feel a twitch in her cheek as she studied their every feature, burning it into her mind.
Marge had short gray hair, still showing a few licks of what looked to be blonde here and there - so pale as to be white at first glance. Her face was sharp yet kind, no amount of gauntness in her cheeks could take away the aura of sheer cheerfulness that seemed to permeate her very being.
George was round all over, no corners or edges to be found. He reminded her of a beardless Father Christmas, features almost infantile if it weren't for the deep wrinkles that ran across his brow and hid below his many chins.
She decapitated him like it was nothing.
One second her wand was tucked against her wrist, the next it was in her hand and spitting furious red sparks across the countertop - the magical lights bouncing off the teapot and scattering across the room.
They sat still for a moment. Everyone, Fleur herself, unable to grasp what had just happened.
George's head tumbled from his body and landed with a dull thump on the couch, arterial blood spurting from the clean stump and painting the stucco ceiling.
His disembodied head didn't show any shock, any fear. It still wore his smirk.
Someone shrieked. She didn't know if it was her or Marge, she just knew she put a silencing charm up the instant it happened.
Fleur didn't even give the woman a chance to speak, to scream out in pain and ask her 'Why?'
Marge's lips slammed shut, glued together. They bled at the corners as she tried to pry them apart.
She slammed her hand against the woman's throat, eyes bugging out of their sockets and a vein in her forehead throbbing as she struggled for breath.
Margaret glanced to the right, tears trickling down her cheeks. She couldn't so much as whimper as Fleur's hand - wrapped in water - plunged into her chest, ribs snapping loudly, a few splinters of bone peppering the front of her jacket.
She grabbed the womans still beating heart and tore it from its home, the arteries flicking back and splashing warm blood across her face.
Fleur held it in both hands, the organ twitching and thrashing in her grasp like a fish plucked from the river. Ribbons of blood flew from veins as thick as her finger, hanging in an arc for a brief moment before falling back to earth.
Her fingers dug into the slippery skin as she pushed every ounce of her magic into it, the veins that ran along its surface turning a blinding white.
One deep breath.
She bit, no, tore a chunk of thick, stringy offal from the heart and chewed, letting the blood run down her chin.
Her stomach churned, be it from the act itself or magic, she didn't rightly care anymore. Fleur could feel as sparks of pure, unabashed power coursed through her veins, setting her very soul alight.
She ripped and chewed, slamming a bloodied palm against her mouth as dry heaves racked her body. Fleur dug a string of sinew from between her teeth, the flesh pulled from the crevice with a nearly inaudible slurp.
Lights flashed behind her eyes, bright and furious and oh so powerful.
Her mind began to swim with each bite, pulling away from the realm of the living and away to the long dead and damned.
Pillars like miniature suns shone upon her, rising skyward endlessly off into a calamitous whirl of shimmering stars and exploding galaxies.
It was as if she was trapped within the very centre of existence, the universe around her slowly being pulled towards this beautiful, glittering apocalypse.
Creatures like that of skyscrapers and castles flew by, bearing dozens of wings so large as to blot out a thousand suns, wearing the faces of lions and men. Some walked on long, stilted arms, connected together by one too many joints and ending in a shimmering mass of insect-like fingers, the appendages shifting like water as they crawled ever forward.
The ground was soft and fertile, tall grass and thick moss as far as the eye could see, interspersed by trees that sang to the heavens. A song of life and all that was and would be, creation incarnate spilling from wooden lips.
Flowers sprouted beneath them in an uncountable, impossible number of colours, some of which were so terribly alien as to sting her eyes. They rose toward shining branches before withering - collapsing to the ground in a rotten heap only to begin again.
Magic of which she could scarcely believe flooded her body, the grass itself twining itself round her legs and wrapping around her waist like a skirt.
She could see through her own eyes the life of Margaret Townsend - her full name, she now learned - passing by at a breakneck pace.
Fleur cried as she held the woman's - her baby in her arms, tiny arms thick with fat and soaked in placenta swiped at her own, a miniature hand wrapping itself around one slender finger and tugging.
Pulse thundering, her heart leapt as she watched it-
Her-
No.
Ronnie. She watched her amazing, incredible Ronnie grow up.
She watched her learn and love; to go from being such a frightened, terribly bright child to a passionate young woman.
George. Her George. The silly, forgetful, maddeningly funny man she loved with every fibre of her being. He was with her every step of the way, doting on her during her pregnancy, running to the shop for leeks when she had a craving so awful that she'd broken three plates and a mug before he'd come through the door - sweat dripping down his brow and an armful of chives falling through a gap in his elbows.
He'd forgotten what was what in his rush. She'd never loved him more than in that moment.
Ronnie died at twenty-eight. A motor accident.
They bobby that came to their door that evening said it was her fault. Drink driving.
She almost killed herself that night, a pen knife against her wrist and a bottle of pills hidden deep in their medicine cabinet.
But she didn't.
She drank until she feared her heart may stop, waking to piss and bile and tears that she couldn't scrub from her cheeks no matter how much she bled.
Those scars seemed to blend into the wrinkles that settled across her face as each day passed to night and the pain seemed to grow less and less.
Things settled, eventually. The monotony of domestic life once more set in. She took a job doing clerical work at the barristers officer near the grocers.
And then she met two interesting young women on a road trip.
Lesbians, she'd thought. Something that once was so terribly scandalous now becoming nothing more than a quirk of character.
It took her time to come to terms with that, with herself, she found. It brought up old memories, seeing Penny down the lane and wondering why her heart beat just as quickly when stealing chaste glances from her as with that handsome older man she had once met in London.
No, better pushed deep down. Things like that were forgotten back then, nothing but a bad dream.
She felt a companionship to these two women. Brave. So wonderfully brave, she had thought them - Helene and Fleur she had later learned, once conversation flowed as easily as the wine into her glass.
And then they came back, only to-
Her chest exploded, blood running down her face. George's blood, so sweet as it trickled between her lips and settled on the tip of her tongue - the sharp sting of copper mingling with something she couldn't quite describe.
She'd never tasted blood like that before, not so much.
She'd never been hurt like that before, her throat bruised and fingers tickling her lungs.
The pain was immense, but it couldn't overshadow the sheer panic - betrayal she felt at seeing this brave young woman plunge her hand into her chest and rip her wriggling heart from its cage.
And then she died, the last thing she saw being one final glimpse of that girl, Fleur, tearing into her heart with jagged teeth as the light shining from it lit up the room.
Margaret-
Fleur-
Fleurga-
Meu-
She collapsed screaming, her hands pressed to the sides of her head as she howled into the ether.
The ground cracked beneath her knees, plants withering and dying only to be reborn again as calamitous waves of magic rocked the earth, visibly bursting from the woman's body.
Her chest shone with the light of Life, blinding and immaculate.
She was Fleur. She was Margaret. She was.
Everything was.
She could feel the breath of every living thing around her, some so faint as to be but a whisper, others as loud and breathtaking as the deafening roar of a dragon. She heard and saw and felt as the world moved, spinning beneath her feet at such dizzying speeds as to leave her drooling, eyes foggy behind shuttered lids.
Earth, true and welcome earth was what she found once more herself on, chin soaked in blood and bits of gristle hanging from her lips.
Helene's hand rested on her shoulder, soft and calming.
"Hey."
Fleur whimpered, staring down at her dripping fingers. "I…"
"It's okay."
She nodded. "I know."
She meant it this time.